Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.
Updated
Claim. Write in lowest terms and ; in the notation of Problem 291, . Shiu's [../library/unit_fractions/shiu_2016_denominators_harmonic_numbers_revised/theorem_1|Theorem 1] states that for infinitely many ; since , every such has . Shiu's Theorem 2 is the exact criterion behind this: for an odd prime , if and only if the leading digit of in base satisfies . Pairing with shows for every odd prime, so every whose leading digit in base is has ; for these are the with , , a set of positive lower density. Hence for infinitely many : the second question of the problem is answered in the affirmative.
Covers. The second question, that occurs for infinitely many , together with the criterion that says for which a given odd prime divides . Not covered: the first question, whether occurs for infinitely many , which the same paper states as a conjecture (with the count of such of order ) and does not prove.
Standing. Claimed. The site's curator, Thomas Bloom, records in the
problem's commentary that the second question is answered affirmatively and
states the leading-digit criterion as a necessary and sufficient condition;
Bloom credits the base- case to Stefan Steinerberger and cites Shiu's
preprint only for the heuristic count of the complementary set, so the
curator's credit goes to Steinerberger's observation, which has its own
pending page,
Steinerberger's base-3 observation,
and is not reviewed evidence for this claim (the site labels the problem
OPEN); this preprint is the earlier written proof of the same answer,
disclosed on that page, and the attribution to Shiu rests on the paper
itself. The paper is an unrefereed preprint
(arXiv:1607.02863, v1 of 11 July 2016, v2 of 30 July 2024; no journal record
was found on 2026-09-18), so refereed is not listed, and no Lean built by
this corpus checks the statement, so formalized is not listed; the
formal-conjectures statement file marks the corresponding part solved with a
sorry body, which is not a formalization. The library's
source card
cites the preprint (arXiv:1607.02863v2), though no file of it is held; its
result pages record the statements read clause by clause and the elementary
proofs read through, and the problem page records an exact-arithmetic check of
the criterion for all odd primes below and all and of the
values against OEIS A110566 up to .