On proofs of generalized Knuth's old sum

The Reed-Dawson identity, or Knuth's old sum, given by \N\[\N\sum_{k=0}^n \binom{n}{k} \binom{2k}{k} \left(-\frac{1}{2}\right)^k = \begin{cases} \frac{1}{2^n} \binom{n}{n/2} & \mbox{for } n \mbox{ even} \\\N0 & \mbox{for } n \mbox{ odd}, \end{cases}\N\]\Nis one of the classical combinatorial identity that can be proved and extended in several ways by using different approaches. In this paper, the authors consider the extensions of this identity obtained by \textit{A. K. Rathie} et al. [Integers 22, Paper A28, 6 p. (2022; Zbl 1497.11051)]. First they reformulate these identities in order to have formulas involving only integers. Specifically, they obtain the following four identities, for \( m,n \in \mathbb{N} \):\N\begin{align*}\N& \sum_{k=0}^{2n} (-1)^k \binom{4m+2}{2m+1}\binom{2n+2m+1}{k+2m+1}\binom{2k}{k} 2^{2n-k} \\\N&\qquad\qquad = \sum_{i=0}^m \binom{2n+2m+1}{2n}\binom{2m+1}{2i+1}\binom{2n+2m-2i}{n+m-i} 2^{2i+1} \\\N& \sum_{k=0}^{2n} (-1)^k \binom{4m}{2m}\binom{2n+2m}{k+2m}\binom{2k}{k} 2^{2n-k} \\\N&\qquad\qquad = \sum_{i=0}^m \binom{2n+2m}{2n}\binom{2m}{2i}\binom{2n+2m-2i}{n+m-i } 2^{2i} \\\N& \sum_{k=0}^{2n+1} (-1)^k \binom{4m}{2m}\binom{2n+2m+1}{k+2m}\binom{2k}{k} 2^{2n-k} \\\N&\qquad\qquad = \sum_{i=0}^m \binom{2n+2m+1}{2n+1}\binom{2m}{2i+1}\binom{2n+2m-2i}{n+m-i} 2^{2i} \\\N& \sum_{k=0}^{2n+1} (-1)^k\binom{4m+2}{2m+1}\binom{2n+2m+2}{k+2m+1}\binom{2k}{k} 2^{2n+1-k} \\\N&\qquad\qquad = \sum_{i=0}^m \binom{2n+2m+2}{2n+1}\binom{2m+1}{2i}\binom{2n+2m-2i+2}{n+m-i+1} 2^{2i}.\N\end{align*}\NThen, they give a combinatorial proof of the first two identities by defining an appropriate sign reversing involution on a suitable set of words. Finally, they prove these identities by means of the Wilf-Zeilberger method.

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