An extension of Boyd's p-adic algorithm for the harmonic series

Abstract: In this paper we will extend a

p

-adic algorithm of Boyd in order to study the size of the set: [J_p(y)=left{n :sum_{j=1}^{n}frac{y^j}{j}equiv 0(mod p) ight}.] Suppose that

p

is one of the first 100 odd primes and

y i n 1, 2, ..., p - 1

, then our calculations prove that

| J_{p} (y) | < i n f t y

in 24240 out of 24578 possible cases. Among other results we show that

| J_{13} (9) | = 18763

. The paper concludes by discussing some possible applications of our method to sums involving Fibonacci numbers.

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