Conversational

Problem Solving

Richard P. Stanley
Conversational
Problem Solving
Conversational
Problem Solving

Richard P. Stanley
 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 00A07, 00A08, 00A09.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stanley, Richard P., 1944- author.
Title: Problem solving camp / Richard P. Stanley.
Description: Providence, Rhode Island : American Mathematical Society, [2020] | Includes bibli-
ographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020000542 | ISBN 9781470456351 (paperback) | ISBN 9781470456948 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Problem solving. | Mathematics–Problems, exercises, etc. | AMS: General –
General and miscellaneous specific topics – Problem books. | General – General and miscel-
laneous specific topics – Recreational mathematics [See also 97A20]. | General – General and
miscellaneous specific topics – Popularization of mathematics.
Classification: LCC QA63 .S73 2020 | DDC 510.76–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020000542

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 25 24 23 22 21 20
 to Atsuko
and
my former students in 18.S34 and 18.A34
 Contents

Preface ix
Chapter 1. The First Day 1
Chapter 2. Polynomials 9
Chapter 3. Base Mathematics 21
Chapter 4. A Mysterious Visitor 33

Chapter 5. Set Theory 39

Chapter 6. Two Triangles 49
Chapter 7. Independence Day 65
Chapter 8. Independence Aftermath 73
Chapter 9. Amanda 81
Chapter 10. An Aesthetical Error 87
Chapter 11. Miraculous Cancellation 95
Chapter 12. Probability Theory 103
Chapter 13. Geometry 115
Chapter 14. Hodgepodge 129
Chapter 15. Self-referential Mathematics 137

Chapter 16. All Good Things Must Come to an End 149

Notes 159
1. First Day 159
2. Polynomials 159
3. Base Mathematics 160
4. A Mysterious Visitor 160
5. Set Theory 161
6. Two Triangles 161
7. Independence Day 162
8. Independence Aftermath 162
9. Amanda 162
10. An Aesthetical Error 163
vii
viii CONTENTS

11. Miraculous Cancellation 163

12. Probability Theory 164
13. Geometry 164
14. Hodgepodge 165
15. Self-Referential Mathematics 165
16. All Good Things Must Come to an End 166

Bibliography 167
Index 175
 Preface

The original inspiration for this book was a series of bridge (the card game)
books by David Bird. These books feature a mixture of amusing characters (such as
a pompous abbot, a clever parrot, and Robin Hood) and interesting bridge hands.
Could something similar be done for mathematics? If so, what should be the subject
matter? My answer to this question is the present book.
For many years at M.I.T. I taught or co-taught the freshman seminar 18.S34,
later called 18.A34, on Mathematical Problem Solving, focused on the Putnam
Competition. During the course of teaching this seminar I accumulated lots of
interesting problems and mathematical facts, as well as some dumb jokes. This
provided most of the material herein.
The intended audience for this book is mathematicians at all levels beginning
with undergraduates, and even high school students, who are adept at solving chal-
lenging problems such as those appearing on the IMO or Putnam Competition.
The primary purpose of the problems in this book is not didactic, but rather to
entertain. Nevertheless I hope that at least some readers will learn some interest-
ing and useful mathematics. For readers primarily interested in the mathematical
content of this book, I have included a List of Problems preceding each chapter.
I am grateful to Kevin Carde for his careful reading of an earlier manuscript of
this book. I also wish to thank Federico Ardila, an anonymous reviewer, and my
editor Sergei Gelfand for their helpful suggestions.
Note to reader. I have taken some liberties with the use of direct quota-
tions, i.e., material in quotation marks, for the sake of readability. For example,
when Professor Blakeley says “I will denote it by S,” it should be understood that
he has written the symbol S (or some blackboard equivalent) on the blackboard.
Similarly, if for instance someone refers to a numbered equation in the text, one
should understand that they have done something like point to this equation on
the board.

ix
 CHAPTER 1

The First Day

PROBLEM LIST

Cutting a 3 × 3 × 3 cube into unit cubes 3

Cutting an n1 × ⋯ × nd brick into unit cubes 3
Two players cutting an m × n chocolate bar impartially (impartial cutcake) 4
Alice cutting vertically and Bob cutting horizontally (cutcake) 4
Two persons dividing a cake fairly 7
Any finite number of persons dividing a cake fairly 7

1
2 1. THE FIRST DAY

Professor Mortimer Ignatius Blakeley walked into Room C-122 on the first
day of Problem Solving Camp. Eight eager but somewhat apprehensive aspiring
mathematicians were seated at their desks. Professor Blakeley already knew quite
a bit about these students from having read their files during the selection process
and from the reception the previous night. They had been chosen from a highly
talented group of undergraduate math majors throughout the USA, and now the
time had finally come to see how they would do!
The Problem Solving Camp students were the following:
● Emiliano Alvarez, whose parents moved to the Boston area from Ecuador
shortly before Emiliano was born.
● Daniel Arkin, from the Milwaukee area.
● Sandra Billingsley, a resident of Cincinnati.
● Sam Dalton, from Columbia, Missouri.
● Clayton Martin, a black student from Tucson.
● Patrick O’Connell, a resident of Ireland who came to the USA for his
undergraduate education.
● Jung Wook Park, whose home was in Seoul, Korea. He also came to the
USA for the first time to begin his undergraduate studies.
● Fumei Yang, a student who came with her family from Guizhou Province
in China to a suburb of Denver when she was 12.
“Welcome to Problem Solving Camp!” said Professor Blakeley. “I am sure you
will find this a great opportunity to learn new mathematics and to enjoy working
on some challenging problems. You are already familiar with the course mechanics.
To quickly review, in the mornings we will discuss mathematics and work on some
new problems. In the afternoon session I’ll pass out some problems related to the
morning’s discussion, and we can work on them with the help of a couple of course
assistants. We can also discuss progress on earlier problems that have not yet been
solved. Now let us get down to serious business!
“First some basic notation that will be used throughout the course. You are all
familiar with the notation Z, Q, R, C for the integers, rationals, real numbers, and
complex numbers. By the way, why is the letter Z used for the integers? Why not
I?”
“Zahl,” said Emiliano quickly.
“Exactly!” said Professor Blakeley. “Zahl is the German word for ‘number’
and Zahlen for ‘numbers.’ And who first used the letter Z, in whatever font, to
denote the integers?”
No one replied.
“Sad . . . , such a basic question. I believe it was first used by Nicolas Bourbaki in
the 1930’s. I suppose you all know that Nicolas Bourbaki is a pseudonym for a group
of mostly French mathematicians that began around 1935 trying to reformulate
much of math in an extremely abstract and formal manner.
“Even if you don’t know the history of the notation Z, at least you should know
how to write it. It should be written in two strokes, like this:
 1. THE FIRST DAY 3

“Whatever you do, don’t make the mistake of beginning . You will then get
the ugly, lopsided .”
The students were beginning to get the idea that Professor Blakeley’s lecturing
style was a little eccentric.
“Well, let us move on to a little more notation. I use N to denote the set
of nonnegative integers and P for the positive integers. Sometimes N is used to
denote the natural numbers, but there doesn’t seem to be universal agreement on
whether 0 is a natural number. Therefore you should think N for ‘nonnegative’ and
P for ‘positive.’ Finally, when n ∈ N I will write [n] = {1, 2, . . . , n}, so in particular
[0] = ∅. Where did the symbol ∅ come from?”
No one volunteered, so Professor Blakeley continued, “It is a letter from the
Norwegian alphabet that was suggested by André Weil. It has nothing to do with
the Greek letter φ.
“Finally the time has arrived to do some mathematics! We should start out
with a problem with important real-world applications. And what could be more
important than the question of how to cut cheese? Therefore suppose that we want
to cut a cube of cheese that is three inches on each side into 27 1 × 1 × 1 inch cubes.
You are allowed to rearrange the pieces after each cut and to cut more than one
piece at once, but each cut must be a single planar slice. What is the least number
of cuts necessary? Please keep quiet if you have seen this problem before.”
“The number of pieces can at most double with each cut. Since 24 < 27 it will
take at least five cuts. It shouldn’t be hard to rearrange the pieces to achieve this,”
said Daniel. Professor Blakeley knew from Daniel’s application that he was very
clever but somewhat impulsive.
“Wait a second,” said Fumei. “The first cut is really lopsided. No matter
how you cut, you’ll have one piece with nine squares and one with 18 . . . .” Several
students were about to speak, but Fumei continued. “In fact, since 24 < 18 you
need at least five more cuts, and obviously you can do it in six cuts.”
Professor Blakeley was impressed. Although Fumei’s solution was not the most
elegant, it was a good argument that had a lot of potential for generalization.
“Very good!” he said. “Does anyone who has seen the problem before know the
most elegant solution?”
Jung Wook Park spoke up. “The center cube has six sides. Each needs a
separate cut.”
“Exactly,” said Professor Blakeley. “Very clever, but perhaps we can get further
with Daniel’s and Fumei’s approach. What about the general case: an n1 ×n2 ×⋯×nd
‘brick’ in d-dimensional space. The math may be interesting, though we lose the
applicability to cheese cutting.”
Clayton said, “Not necessarily. I’ve been wondering how to cut a four-
dimensional block of cheese that popped out of one of my Klein bottles.”
“I stand corrected.” Just from talking with Clayton for a few minutes at the
reception, Professor Blakeley knew that he had a well-developed sense of humor.
“But we can still think about how to cut an n1 × n2 × ⋯ × nd brick. Let’s mull over
this, and please raise your hand if you think you have a solution or just a significant
insight.”
Professor Blakeley patiently waited while the students worked furiously. After
only a couple of minutes the hand of Sandra went up, soon followed by Jung Wook
and Daniel.
4 1. THE FIRST DAY

Amazing, thought Professor Blakeley. “Well, Sandra, since you raised your
hand first, let’s hear your thoughts. Please come to the board and explain.”
Sandra walked up to the front of the classroom and explained with the help of
the chalkboard, “It requires ⌈log2 (ni )⌉ cuts to break up a line of ni bricks in the
ith coordinate direction. Since we can cut up only one direction at a time for each
piece, a lower bound on the number of cuts is

d
(1.1) ∑⌈log2 (ni )⌉.
i=1

It seems pretty clear this should be possible to obtain just by doing the strategy
for d = 1 one direction at a time.”
“Excellent!” said Professor Blakeley. “Indeed, it’s not much work to make your
argument completely rigorous. This is really the way to look at this problem, and
not by some special trick that works only in a handful of cases.
“There are some different kinds of problems related to cake cutting. Let’s start
with a certain mathematical game played between two players, Alice and Bob (the
traditional names for the players of two-player math games). This time we are
cutting chocolate bars rather than cheese. Suppose we have such a bar divided by
indentations into an m × n array of squares. Alice begins and (unless m = n = 1)
breaks the bar into two pieces by cutting along one of the grid lines. The players
take turns choosing one of the pieces and cutting it into two along one of the grid
lines, if this piece is not just a 1 × 1 square. The first player unable to move loses.
This situation will occur when we reach mn 1 × 1 squares. For each value of m and
n, who will win under optimal play? What is the correct strategy for the winner?
Again raise your hand if you see the answer.”
This time hands went up very quickly. Professor Blakeley pointed to Daniel,
implicitly asking him to speak.
Daniel said, “The number of pieces increases by one after each turn. Therefore
the game will end after mn − 1 turns. Thus Alice wins if and only if mn is even. It
doesn’t matter how she plays.”
“Good, good! Probably many of you would get bored very quickly playing this
game. Not only is the winner independent of how either player plays, but also the
number of moves. The game is called impartial cutcake, ‘impartial’ because at any
stage of the game, the moves available to each player are the same.
“Let’s try to make things more interesting. Rather than have the same moves
available for each player, let each cut be available to just one of the players. To be
specific, regard our m × n chocolate bar to be an array with m rows and n columns.
Alice can only make vertical cuts separating two adjacent columns (so on her first
turn she has n − 1 choices), and similarly Bob for rows. Alice goes first as before,
and the first player unable to move loses. This game is called simply cutcake. Who
wins with optimal play? Raise your hand if you have an idea.”
After a short while Emiliano raised his hand. After Professor Blakeley nodded
he said, “If n > m, say, then Alice has more available moves. It seems plausible
that Alice will always win.”
Fumei, who had been furiously computing some small cases, said, “That doesn’t
seem correct. For the 3×2 case, Alice will lose whether or not she has the horizontal
or vertical cuts.”
 1. THE FIRST DAY 5

Emiliano replied, “I see . . . . But it must be the case that if n is sufficiently

larger than m, then Alice will win if she has the vertical cuts.”
Meanwhile Patrick had been writing some code on his PC. Professor Blakeley
knew that he was a computer whiz. Patrick said, “I’ve checked that Alice wins on
a 1 × n board for any n ≥ 2 (trivial), on a 2 × n board for n ≥ 4, and on a 3 × n board
for n ≥ 8. I’m using the obvious fact that if Alice wins on m × n, then she also wins
on m × (n + 1).”
“Great!” said Professor Blakeley. “That does suggest an obvious conjecture.
While you’re at it, consider the generalization where we begin with finitely many
chocolate bars of various sizes. Let’s take a short break before getting back to these
questions.”
Professor Blakeley was pleased to see that the students spent most of their break
time thinking about chocolate bars. A couple of students were even eating them.
What better way to spend a break from mathematics than doing mathematics?
Also during the break Clayton approached Professor Blakeley with scissors and a
piece of paper divided into a 3 × 5 grid of squares. Clayton challenged the Professor
to a game of impartial cutcake and said that the Professor could move first. “That’s
very generous of you, Clayton,” said Professor Blakeley, “but I don’t have much of
a talent for mathematical games, so you should find a stronger opponent.”
After the break Professor Blakeley said, “Let me first say some general words
concerning games like cutcake. I will speak somewhat informally and not give
precise definitions. A game is called partizan if it is always disadvantageous to
move. It is not hard to see that cutcake is a partizan game. Any cut a player makes
to a rectangle R simply removes that option for him- or herself while doubling the
number of options for the other player on the two pieces into which R has been
cut. It turns out that for any partizan game G we can assign a real number ν(G)
called the value of the game. We should think that ν(G) represents the number of
moves that Alice is ahead of Bob. For instance, a 1 × n chocolate bar R has value
ν(R) = n − 1. If R is part of a larger collection of chocolate bars of various sizes,
then Alice has n − 1 possible moves which she can take on R at her leisure, and
Bob can do nothing to disrupt these n − 1 moves. Similarly, an m × 1 rectangle has
value −(m − 1), since now Alice is m − 1 moves behind. A 1 × 1 rectangle has value
0, meaning that mover loses. If we have a set S = {R1 , . . . , Rk } of disjoint chocolate
bars, then a move on S consists of cutting some Ri in an allowed way. We can
denote this by writing S = R1 + ⋯ + Rk . It seems very plausible and can be made
completely rigorous that
ν(S) = ν(R1 ) + ⋯ + ν(Rk ).
In particular, ν(S) = 0 if and only if mover loses (with optimal play). This is
quite clear when all the Ri ’s are of sizes mj × 1 and 1 × nj . The player’s moves are
completely independent, so it is just a question of counting how many moves each
player has. One way to show that a complicated position S has a certain value
v is to take a rectangle R that is known to have value −v and then to show that
mover loses in the game S + R. Thus to understand cutcake completely, it suffices
to determine the value ν(R) of any rectangle.
“Let us write for instance 2Ra,b + 3Rc,d to be the game with two a × b rectangles
and three c × d rectangles. A tedious analysis of all possibilities shows that if we
begin with R3,8 + R4,1 , then mover loses. Since ν(R4,1 ) = −3 it follows that R3,8 = 3.
Now one can also show that R5,9 = 1. Note that in general ν(Ra,b ) = −ν(Rb,a ), since
6 1. THE FIRST DAY

Figure 1.1. Cutcake values

on Ra,b + Rb,a the second player can always win by an obvious mimicking strategy.
Thus we see that R3,8 + 3R9,5 = 0, i.e., mover loses on R3,8 + 3R9,5 . I hope this
simple example illustrates sufficiently the power of the value function ν.
“So the problem we need to solve is to give a simple formula for ν(Ri,j ), or at
least a simple method to compute this number. Any ideas?”
Fumei said, “It would help to see some data so I can get some feeling for what
is going on.”
“Exactly!” said Professor Blakeley. “Unless you have unusual insight and see
what to do immediately, naturally you want to see some data. In fact, for this
problem a sufficient amount of data leads to an obvious conjecture. One way of
saying the rule is that if m ≤ n and m has k + 1 binary digits, then ν(Rm,n ) = v if
and only if (v + 1)2k ≤ n ≤ (v + 2)2n − 1. In particular, ν(Rm,n ) = 0 if and only if m
and n have the same number of binary digits.”
“Here is a table of ν(Rm,n ) for m, n ≤ 15,” continued Professor Blakeley as
he displayed Figure 1.1 on the screen. “Once the value of ν(Rm,n ) is guessed, its
validity is straightforward to prove by induction. I’ll let you figure this out by
yourself.
“Cutcake happens to be an especially simple partizan game because the value
of every position is an integer. In more complicated partizan games we can get
fractional values. For nonpartizan games the situation becomes much more com-
plicated. I don’t need to discuss this with you, because all this and much more is
 1. THE FIRST DAY 7

thoroughly covered in the fantastic book Winning Ways by Berlekamp, Conway,

and Guy.1 If you like this kind of mathematical game theory, then be sure to take
a look at this book.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the theory of ‘fair cake-cutting,’
although we don’t have time for proofs. I’m sure you’re familiar with the procedure
of dividing some object like a piece of cake among two persons. The two persons
may have different ‘valuation functions’ which tell them how much they like each
piece of the cake. The goal is to share the cake so each person thinks they got at
least their fair share (called proportionality) and neither person thinks the other got
more than their fair share (called envy-freeness). It is easy to see that envy-freeness
implies proportionality. The well-known method is for one person to divide the cake
into two pieces which he or she regards of equal value, and for the second person
to choose one of the pieces. We have to put some reasonable assumptions on the
valuation functions in order for this procedure to work. We can regard a valuation
as a finitely additive nonatomic probability distribution V . Thus the value of the
entire cake is 1, each individual point has value 0, and if A, B are disjoint pieces of
cake, then V (A ∪ B) = V (A) + V (B).
“For three persons, an envy-free algorithm was devised in 1960 by John Self-
ridge, later independently found by Conway. It requires as many as five slices. In
1995 Steven Brams and Alan Taylor found a finite procedure that works for any
number n of persons, but the number of slices for sufficiently large fixed n is an un-
bounded function of the valuations. Finally in 2018 Haris Aziz and Alan Mackenzie
described an envy-free algorithm that has a bounded number of slices for fixed n.
If f (n) is the least number of slices which suffices for any n valuations, then it is
known that f (n) ≥ cn2 , while the upper bound is an exponential tower of six n’s.
Quite a difference!
“Let’s see if we can figure out an algorithm for eight persons.” Professor Blake-
ley then reached into his backpack and pulled out a cupcake wrapped in cling wrap
and a plastic knife. He unwrapped the cupcake and said, “I am happy to have all
of you share this delicious cupcake, but let’s first divide it fairly into eight pieces.
Who would like to begin?”
None of the students were able to think of an algorithm that could conceivably
take an exponential tower of six 8’s slices. They had their doubts about the prac-
8
ticality of such an algorithm, even if they could discover it. Even 88 slices would
far exceed the number of atoms in the cupcake.
“Not to worry,” said Professor Blakeley, “there is a simple solution!” He reached
into his backpack and pulled out seven more cupcakes. He then gave a cupcake to
each student.
“But Professor Blakeley,” said Sandra, “it doesn’t seem fair that you are getting
nothing.”
“A very good point!” replied the Professor. Once more he reached into his
backpack, pulled out a cupcake about 50% larger than any of the others, unwrapped
it, and took a big bite. The other students also began eating their cupcakes, and
thus ended the morning class.

1
According to [101], Richard Guy was for several years the world’s oldest living mathemati-
cian, until his death on March 9, 2020. He was born on September 30, 1916.
 CHAPTER 2

Polynomials

PROBLEM LIST

Condition for ax + b to have a zero in K 10

Condition for ax2 + bx + c to have a zero in K 10
Condition for ax3 + bx2 + cx + d to have only real zeros 10
Necessary condition for a polynomial to have only real zeros 12
Sufficiency of the previous condition 12
Number of terms in the previous condition 13
Number of terms in a discriminant 13
Discriminant of xn + ax + b 13
Discriminant of xn + axk + b 14
n
Discriminant of ∑ni=0 xn! 14
i
Discriminant of ∑ni=0 (n+α )x
n−i i!
15
Real zeros and Toeplitz matrices 15
Newton’s necessary condition for real zeros 16
Product of log-concave polynomials is log-concave 16
∑j=0 (−1)k−j ( j )(x + j)n has positive coefficients
k k
17
Zeros of f (x + 1) + uf (x), where ∣u∣ = 1 18

9
10 2. POLYNOMIALS

Professor Blakeley arrived the next morning in a highly frenetic mood. “I did
it! I did it! I out-Eulered Euler!”
He paused a short time to increase the suspense and then continued, “I have
just discovered a fantastic variant of Euler’s famous formula eπi + 1 = 0, which
involves the five fundamental constants 0, 1, i, e, and π. My formula also includes
Euler’s constant
n
1
γ = lim (∑ − log n) = 0.5772156649 . . . .
i=1 i
n→∞

“You have the privilege of being present at the unveiling of the greatest formula
in all of mathematics:
e0πγi = 1.”
The students were speechless in the presence of this
√unexpected result. Finally
Clayton said, “I think I see a way to incorporate also 2 into your formula.”
“Amazing!” said Professor Blakeley. “We can discuss this after class. Mean-
while, let’s get going with today’s topic, namely, polynomials. There’s lots of in-
teresting stuff to say about these creatures. In fact, the entire subject of algebraic
geometry is about the zeros of polynomials. Regrettably I don’t have time today
to cover everything that’s known about algebraic geometry, so I will sample from a
smaller set. We will look at some properties of polynomials that make interesting
problems or are entertaining stand-alone facts.
“We will consider only polynomials in one variable over a field K. The set of
such polynomials is denoted K[x], as you all know. By a zero of a polynomial
f (x) ∈ K[x], I mean an element α of some extension field of K for which f (α) = 0.
Often the word ‘root’ is used as a synonym for ‘zero,’ but if you want to be precise,
then polynomials f (x) have zeros, while polynomial equations f (x) = 0 have roots.
“We can start with polynomials of degree one, say f (x) = ax + b, where a ≠ 0.
Does anyone know a necessary and sufficient condition for such a polynomial to
have a zero in K?”
No one bothered to answer this rhetorical question, so Professor Blakeley con-
tinued, “Okay, let’s go to quadratics. Let f (x) = ax2 + bx + c ∈ K[x] with a ≠ 0. Is
there a nice condition for f (x) to have two zeros (always counted with multiplicity)
in K?”
“b2 − 4ac should be a square in K,” suggested Emiliano.
“Wrong!” said Professor Blakeley.
Wrong? Everyone knew the quadratic formula. What could be wrong?
“Remember, K can be any field,” said Professor Blakeley.
Emiliano saw the light. “Oops, I should have said that the characteristic of K
isn’t 2.”
“Now you’re cooking! So over R this becomes the familiar condition b2 −4ac ≥ 0.
What about cubic polynomials

(2.1) f (x) = ax3 + bx2 + cx + d ∈ R[x],

where a ≠ 0? Is there an analogue of the discriminant condition b2 − 4ac ≥ 0 for all

the zeros to be real?”
The students had not heard of such a condition for cubics. Most knew that the
discriminant Δ(f ) of a monic cubic polynomial (2.1) with zeros α1 , α2 , α3 in some
 2. POLYNOMIALS 11

extension field is defined as

Δ(f ) = ∏ (αi − αj ) .
2
1≤i<j≤3

This can be written as a polynomial in the coefficients b, c, d since every symmetric

polynomial in the zeros can be written as a polynomial in the elementary symmetric
functions −b, c, −d of the zeros, which are just the coefficients up to sign. When the
cubic polynomial f (x) isn’t monic, one needs to define
(2.2) Δ(f ) = a4 ∏(αi − αj )2
i<j

in order to get a polynomial in a, b, c, d (i.e., to avoid negative powers of a). Specif-

ically, we have
Δ(f ) = b2 c2 − 4ac3 − 4b3 d − 27a2 d2 + 18abcd,
though this formula is usually too complicated to be immediately useful. However,
the definition (2.2) does show that Δ(f ) ≥ 0 is a necessary condition for all the
zeros to be real.
“Is it also sufficient?” asked Professor Blakeley.
This seemed unlikely to the students, one reason being that they probably
would have previously heard of such a simple result. However, it wasn’t clear how
to show lack of sufficiency except by random trial and error.
“Here’s a clever way to get another condition,” said Professor Blakeley. “For
convenience assume first that Δ(f ) ≠ 0, so that the zeros of f (x) are distinct. We
can assume that f (x) is monic simply by dividing f (x) by its leading coefficient.
Let α1 , α2 , α3 be the zeros of f (x) as before. Consider the matrix
⎡ 1 α α2 ⎤
⎢ 1 1 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
V = ⎢ 1 α2 α22 ⎥ .
⎢ ⎥
⎢ 1 α3 α3 ⎥ 2
⎣ ⎦
Note that
det V = ∏ (αj − αi ) ≠ 0,
1≤i<j≤3
the well-known evaluation of the Vandermonde determinant.
“Define pk = α1k + α2k + α3k , called the kth power sum symmetric function of the
αi ’s. Then
⎡ 3 p p ⎤
⎢ 1 2 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
V V = ⎢ p1 p2 p3 ⎥ .
t
⎢ ⎥
⎢ p2 p3 p4 ⎥
⎣ ⎦
If A is a nonsingular (square) real matrix, then At A is positive definite. Thus if
every αi is real, then V t V is positive definite (since we are assuming that the αi ’s
are distinct). Now a real symmetric n × n matrix [aij ]ni,j=1 is positive definite if and
only if every principal leading minor is positive. A principal leading minor is the
determinant of a submatrix [aij ]ki,j=1 for k = 1, 2, . . . , n. Thus the three principal
leading minors of V t V must be positive if f (x) has real zeros. The first principal
leading minor is just 3, which I leave as an exercise to show positivity. The third
principal leading minor is det V t V = (det V )2 = Δ(f ) (since f is monic). Thus we
get one new condition, namely,
3 p1
det [ ] > 0.
p1 p2
12 2. POLYNOMIALS

Each pi is a symmetric polynomial of the αi ’s and hence a polynomial in the coef-

ficients b, c, d. For instance,
p1 = −b,
p2 = b2 − 2c,
p3 = −b3 + 3bc − 3d,
p4 = b4 − 4b2 c + 4bd + 2c2 .
When we do the computation we get the condition
(2.3) b2 > 3c.
If we allow Δ(f ) = 0, then a continuity argument shows that we just need to replace
> with ≥ in the two conditions. I should mention that you have to be a little careful
here, since it is false that a real symmetric matrix is positive semidefinite (i.e., all
eigenvalues are nonnegative) if all the leading principal minors are nonnegative. An
0 0
example is [ ].
0 −1
“Exactly analogous reasoning applies to real polynomials f (x) of degree n. We
obtain n − 1 polynomial inequalities among the coefficients that are necessary for
having only real zeros. Namely, suppose the zeros are α1 , . . . , αn and let
n
pj = ∑ αij .
i=1

Suppose that the zeros are all distinct. We get that if f (x) has only real zeros,
then the n × n matrix
⎡ n p1 p2 ⋯ pn−1 ⎤
⎢ ⎥
⎢ p ⋯ pn ⎥
⎢ 1 p 2 p 3 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
(2.4) V t V = ⎢ p2 p3 p4 ⋯ pn+1 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ ⋮ ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ pn−1 pn pn+1 ⋯ p2n−2 ⎥
⎣ ⎦
is positive definite. Equivalently, its principal leading minors are positive. Since
the first leading principal minor is just n, we get n − 1 inequalities in all.
“It turns out that this necessary condition for real zeros is also sufficient. Let
me give the elegant proof. It requires a knowledge of the basic result about real qua-
dratic forms, which I now state. Let A = [aij ]n−1
i,j=0 be a real nonsingular symmetric
n × n matrix. The quadratic form associated with A is the polynomial
n−1
SA (x) = ∑ aij xi xj .
i,j=0

We can then write SA (x) in the form

q n
(2.5) SA (x) = ∑ Zk2 − ∑ Zk2 ,
k=1 k=q+1

where each Zk is a (nonzero) real linear form, i.e.,

n
Zk = ∑ bhk xh , bhk ∈ R.
h=1
This representation is not unique, but the integer q is unique and is equal to the
number of positive eigenvalues of A.
 2. POLYNOMIALS 13

“Now let A be the matrix V t V of equation (2.4), coming from the real poly-
nomial f (x) = c(x − α1 )⋯(x − αn ), where α1 , . . . , αn can be any distinct complex
numbers. We compute that
n−1
i+j
SA (x) = ∑ (α1 + ⋯ + αn ) xi xj
i+j
i,j=0
n
2
= ∑ (x0 + αk x1 + αk x2 + ⋯ + αk xn−1 ) .
2 n−1

k=1

Let Zk = x0 + αk x1 + αk2 x2 + ⋯ + αkn−1 xn−1 .

If αk ∈ R, then Zk2 contributes a positive
term to the sum in equation (2.5). Otherwise let an overhead bar denote complex
conjugation. The pair αk , ᾱk yields
Zk = Pk + iQk , Z̄k = Pk − iQk ,
where Pk and Qk are real linear forms. Note that
Zk2 + Z̄k2 = 2Pk2 − 2Q2k ,
thus contributing one positive and one negative term to (2.5). Hence the number
of positive eigenvalues of A is q + 12 (n − q) = 12 (n + q). In particular, A is positive
definite (equivalently, all eigenvalues are positive) if and only if q = n, and the proof
follows for distinct zeros. By a continuity argument or a slightly more complicated
version of the previous proof, we get the generalization to any zeros.”
Even the students who were not familiar with real quadratic forms admired
this application of them. They promised themselves to learn about this subject as
quickly as possible.
Professor Blakeley continued, “Here are the first two inequalities for a monic
polynomial xn + axn−1 + bxn−2 + cxn−3 + dxn−4 + ⋯ of deg n:
(n − 1)a2 − 2nb ≥ 0,

−2(n − 1)a3 c + (n − 2)a2b2 − 4(n − 1)a2 d + 2(5n − 6)abc − 4(n − 2)b3 + 8nbf − 9nc2 ≥ 0.
The next one has 34 terms, and the next after that 204 terms, and then 1409 terms.
I wonder if there is a nice way to determine the number of terms? So far as I know,
no one has looked at this problem, but it could be difficult. It is similar to finding
the number of terms in the discriminant of a generic polynomial of degree n, which
is an open problem. This sequence begins (starting at n = 1) 1, 2, 5, 16, 59, 246,
1103, 5247.
“Going back to the matrix V , note that since V is a Vandermonde matrix,
we have that det A = det V t V = Δ(f ), the discriminant of f . Let’s see if you can
compute some discriminants, other than when f is quadratic. If a and b are complex
numbers and n ≥ 2, then who knows how to compute Δ(xn + ax + b)?”
Professor Blakeley was slightly surprised when no one volunteered. “Here is a
hint,” he said, “note that if f (x) = ∏ni=1 (x − αi ), then
n
1
f ′ (x) = f (x) ∑ .”
i=1 x − αi

I wonder if that will be enough of a hint, he thought, but within a few minutes
Daniel, Patrick, and Sandra had their hands in the air. The Professor selected
Sandra.
14 2. POLYNOMIALS

“I’ll have to do the details of the computation on the fly,” she said, “but the
basic idea should work. Using Professor Blakeley’s hint we have
f ′ (αj ) = ∏(αj − αi ).
i≠j

Since Δ(f ) = ∏i≠j (αi − αj ) , we have

2

n
(2.6) Δ(f ) = (−1)( 2 ) f ′ (α1 )⋯f ′ (αn ).
Now if f (x) = xn + ax + b, then f ′ (x) = nxn−1 + a. Hence
αj f ′ (αj ) = nαjn + aαj
= n(−aαj − b) + aαj
= −(n − 1)aαj − bn.
Plugging into equation (2.6) and using
α1 α2 ⋯αn = (−1)n b
gives
n
(−1)( 2 ) n
Δ(f ) = ∏(−bn − (n − 1)aαj )
α1 ⋯αn j=1
n
(−1)( 2 )+n n
bn
= (n − 1)n an ∏ (− − αj )
b j=1 (n − 1)a
n
n −bn bn
= (−1)( 2 )+n (n − 1)n an [( ) − + b]
(n − 1)a n−1
n
(n )+n −bn b
= (−1) 2 (n − 1) a [(
n n
) − ]
(n − 1)a n−1
n n−1
= (−1)( 2 ) nn bn−1 + (−1)( 2
)
(n − 1)n−1 an .”
Sandra received some help from the other students as she performed this com-
putation, especially since it was easy to make a sign error, but she felt very pleased
at figuring this out.
Professor Blakeley agreed. “Fantastic! There is actually a more general formula
for Δ(xn + axk + b) for any 0 < k < n, namely
n d
Δ(xn + axk + b) = (−1)( 2 ) bk−1 [nN bN −k − (−1)N (n − k)N −K kK aN ] ,
where d = gcd(n, k), N = n/d, and K = k/d. The proof is similar, though more
complicated.
“Let’s try one more. It shouldn’t be so difficult if you followed Sandra’s proof.
For n ≥ 1 let
n
xn
fn (x) = ∑ .
i=0 n!
What is Δ(fn )? Here the polynomial is not monic. By definition, if f (x) =
c ∏ni=1 (x − αi ), then
Δ(f ) ∶= c2n−2 ∏(αj − αi )2 .
i<j

The factor c2n−2 is needed in order for Δ(f ) to be a polynomial function of its
coefficients, as we noted earlier for n = 3.”
 2. POLYNOMIALS 15

Most of the students realized that if Sandra’s method was going to be appli-
cable, then one needed to get a handle on fn′ (x). Surely it must be relevant that
fn′ (x) = fn−1 (x). After this start it wasn’t so hard to find the solution. Since
Clayton was the first to raise his hand, he was given the honor of explaining.
“Let fn (x) = n!
1
∏i=1 (x − αi ). Then
n

1
(2.7) fn′ (α1 )⋯fn′ (αn ) = ∏(αj − αi ).
n!n i≠j
Hence n
(−1)( 2 ) ′
Δ(fn ) = f (α1 )⋯fn′ (αn ).
n!n−2 n
Now
xn
fn′ (x) = fn−1 (x) = fn (x) −
,
n!
so fn′ (αi ) = −αin /n!. From equation (2.7) there follows
n
(−1)( 2 ) α1n αnn
Δ(fn ) = (− ) ⋯ (− ).
n!n−2 n! n!
But α1 ⋯αn = (−1)n n!, so the whole thing simplifies to
n
(−1)( 2 )
Δ(fn ) = .”
n!n−2
“Great job!” said Professor Blakeley. “On the problem set you can have fun
with the somewhat more challenging discriminant
n
n + α xi 1 n
(2.8) Δ (∑ ( ) ) = 2n−2 ∏ j j (α + j)j−1 ,
i=0 n − i i! n! j=2

where α ∈ C (or we could take α to be an indeterminate).

“I should mention a completely different necessary and sufficient condition for
a polynomial to have only real zeros which is useless for specific examples but of
great theoretical interest. Given a real polynomial f (x) = a0 +a1 x+⋯+an xn , define
an infinite matrix A(f ) whose rows and columns are indexed by positive integers,
with
(2.9) A(f )ij = aj−i .
We set ak = 0 if k < 0 or k > n. The matrix A(f ) is an example of a Toeplitz
matrix, i.e., a matrix with constant diagonals (parallel to the main diagonal). The
remarkable result of Michael Aissen, Isaac Schoenberg, and Anne Whitney is that
all the zeros of f (x) are real if and only if every minor of A(f ) is nonnegative.
I said that this result is useless for specific examples because even for quadratic
polynomials ax2 + bx + c it is necessary to check infinitely many minors; there is no
single minor equal to a positive multiple of b2 − 4ac. Things really get interesting
when we look at power series rather than polynomials, but this topic is beyond the
scope of this camp. It is part of the fascinating theory of total positivity.
“A useful necessary condition for only real zeros is due to Isaac Newton, though
this is not his best-known result. Write a real polynomial of degree n in the form
f (x) = ∑ni=0 (ni)ai xi . Newton’s theorem says that if all the zeros of f (x) are real,
then a2i ≥ ai−1 ai+1 for 1 ≤ i ≤ n − 1. In other words, the coefficients a0 , a1 , . . . , an are
logarithmically concave, or log concave (sometimes written log-concave) for short.
16 2. POLYNOMIALS

For instance, equation (2.3) is a special case. How hard can it be to prove a result
from the 1600’s? Does anyone know how to do this?”
A few students had seen the result before. One needs to use the fact that if all
the zeros of a real polynomial f (x) are real, then the same is true for its derivative
f ′ (x). This is an immediate consequence of Rolle’s theorem, which implies that
there is a zero of f ′ (x) in between two zeros of f (x), together with the limiting
case which states that if f (x) has a zero of order k at x = α, then f ′ (x) has a zero
of order k − 1 at x = α.
Professor Blakeley let Daniel continue the proof. He said, “By the Fundamental
di−1
Theorem of Algebra, f (x) has n zeros, including multiplicity. Let Q(x) = dx i−1 f (x).

Thus Q(x) is a polynomial of degree n − i + 1 with only real zeros. Let R(x) =
xn−i+1 Q(1/x), a polynomial of degree at most n − i + 1. The zeros of R(x) are just
reciprocals of those zeros of Q(x) not equal to 0, with possible new zeros at 0. At
dn−i−1
any rate, all zeros of R(x) are real. Now let S(x) = dx n−i−1 R(x), a polynomial of

degree at most two. Then every zero of S(x) is real. An explicit computation yields
S(x) = cn (ai−1 x2 + 2ai x + ai+1 )
for some nonzero constant cn which I don’t remember offhand. If ai−1 = 0, then
trivially a2i ≥ ai−1 ai+1 . Otherwise S(x) is a quadratic polynomial. Since it has real
zeros, its discriminant Δ is nonnegative. But
Δ = (2ai )2 − 4ai−1 ai+1 = 4(a2i − ai−1 ai+1 ) ≥ 0,
so the sequence a0 , a1 , . . . , an is log-concave as claimed.”
“So elegant!” said Professor Blakeley. “By the way cn = n!/2, though this is
irrelevant.
“This reminds me of a cute argument involving log-concavity. Suppose that
A(x) = ∑i ai xi and B(x) = ∑i bi xi are polynomials with positive log-concave coef-
ficients, so a2i ≥ ai−1 ai+1 and similarly for bi . How can we show that the product
A(x)B(x) also has log-concave coefficients?”
The students began computing furiously. It looked like it was going to be messy,
but not hopeless, to give a direct proof. But what was the “cute argument” that
Professor Blakeley had in mind?
“Here is a little hint,” said Professor Blakeley. “What is the determinant of
the following matrix:
a ai+1
[ i ]? ”
ai−1 ai
So the cute argument involved linear algebra, but it still wasn’t clear how to
bring it into the picture.
“Okay, another hint. Given a polynomial f (x) = ∑ ai xi , consider the infinite
matrix from equation (2.9) (or we could take a sufficiently large finite matrix)
⎡ a0 a1 a2 a3 ⋯ ⎤
⎢ ⎥
⎢ 0 a a a ⋯ ⎥
⎢ 0 1 2 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
A(f ) = ⎢ 0 0 a0 a1 ⋯ ⎥ .
⎢ ⎥
⎢ 0 0 0 a0 ⋯ ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ ⋮ ⎥
⎣ ⎦
What can you say about A(f )A(g)?”
With this very strong hint, it was soon clear that A(f )A(g) = A(f g). In fact,
the map f (x) ↦ A(f ) is an isomorphism from the polynomial ring R[x] to the
 2. POLYNOMIALS 17

set of upper triangular real Toeplitz matrices [aj−i ]i,j≥0 with finitely many nonzero
elements in each row. But what did this have to do with log-concavity? It didn’t
take long for the penny to drop. Fumei was given the task of explaining.
“The key is the Cauchy-Binet formula,” she said. “We need to show that
every 2 × 2 consecutive submatrix B (that is, the rows and columns of B come from
consecutive rows i, i+1 and columns j, j+1 of A(f g)) has a nonnegative determinant.
Let A(f )[i, i+1] be the submatrix of A(f ) consisting of rows i and i+1, and similarly
A(g)⟨j, j +1⟩ for the columns of A(g). Then B = A(f )[i, i+1]⋅A(g)⟨j, j +1⟩ (matrix
multiplication). By the Cauchy-Binet formula,

det B = ∑ det C(r, s) ⋅ det D(r, s),

r<s

where C(r, s) is the 2 × 2 submatrix of A(f )[i, i + 1] obtained from columns r and
s, while D(r, s) is the 2 × 2 submatrix of A(g)⟨j, j + 1⟩ obtained from rows r and
s. Now from a2i ≥ ai−1 ai+1 and ai > 0 for all i there follows easily that for all i ≤ j
and s ≥ 0 we have ai aj ≥ ai−s aj+s . Hence det C(r, s) ≥ 0 and det D(r, s) ≥ 0, and
the proof follows.”
“Ooh la la,” exclaimed Professor Blakeley, “such a nice argument! Let me
remind you of the statement of the Cauchy-Binet formula. Let C be an m × n
matrix and D an n × m matrix over a field K. We want to compute det CD. If
m > n, then it should be clear by a rank argument that det CD = 0, so assume
m ≤ n. If S ⊆ [n], then let C[S] be the submatrix of C consisting of the columns
of C indexed by elements of S, and similarly D⟨S⟩ for the rows of D. Then the
Cauchy-Binet formula asserts that

det CD = ∑ det C[S] ⋅ det D⟨S⟩,

S

where S ranges over all m-element subsets of [n]. Thus in the present situation we
have C = A(f )[i, i + 1] and D = A(g)⟨j, j + 1⟩, in the notation of Fumei.
“By the way, who knows another name for the Cauchy-Binet formula?”
There were no volunteers, so Professor Blakeley continued, “It is also known as
the Binet-Cauchy formula.
“Time for a break! Here is a little problem to think about so you won’t get too
bored while I answer some text messages. For positive integers n and k, define
k
k
(2.10) Pk,n (x) = ∑ (−1)k−j ( )(x + j)n .
j=0 j

Show that Pk,n (x) has positive coefficients.”

The students worked hard during Professor Blakeley’s absence. It wasn’t hard
to see that Pn,n (x) = n! and Pk,n (x) = 0 for k > n. Thus it sufficed to consider k < n,
though this assumption didn’t seem to help. They fooled around with binomial
coefficients for a while. It looked like some combinatorial interpretation of the
coefficients might be possible using the Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion, but the
computation became messy. Then Daniel got the idea that maybe all the zeros of
Pk,n (x) were real and negative. In that case, we would have Pk,n (x) = ∏dj=1 (x + αi )
for αi > 0, so clearly Pk,n (x) would have positive coefficients. However, when they
computed numerically the zeros of Pk,n (x) for some small examples, they saw that
every zero had real part − k2 < 0. This also sufficed to show that Pk,n (x) had positive
18 2. POLYNOMIALS

coefficients, because the nonreal zeros came in pairs − k2 ± bi, and

k k k2
(x − (− + bi)) (x − (− − bi)) = x2 + kx + + b2 ,
2 2 4
which has positive coefficients.
At this point Professor Blakeley returned to the classroom. “Any progress?”
he asked.
The students explained what they had done, and the Professor said, “Great
job! You really got to the essence of the problem quickly! So the key question
remains: how to show that all the zeros have real part −k/2?
“Since time is short, let me give you a little hint. Let f (x) be a complex
polynomial such that every zero has the same real part γ. Let u ∈ C with ∣u∣ = 1.
What can you say about the zeros of f (x + 1) + uf (x)?”
Some quick experimentation by Patrick produced the surprising conjecture that
all the zeros of f (x + 1) + uf (x) have real part γ − 12 . How to prove it?
Professor Blakeley noticed that Sam was quite agitated. The Professor was
pleased that he finally had an excuse to call on Sam, who he knew was quite
brilliant but extremely shy.
Sam said in a surprisingly assertive voice, “We may assume that f (x) is monic.
Then we can write
f (x) = ∏ (x − γ − δj i) , δj ∈ R,
j

where i2 = −1. If f (w + 1) + uf (w) = 0, then ∣f (w)∣ = ∣f (w + 1)∣. Suppose that

w = γ − 12 + η + θi, where η, θ ∈ R. Thus
--- --- --- -
---
(−
1
+ + (θ − )i) --- = --- ( 1 + η + (θ − δ )i)----- .
(2.11) ∏
---- j η δ j --- ---∏ j ---
2 -- -- j 2 --
-
Note that
2
1 1
∣− + η + (θ − δj )i∣ = − η + η 2 + (θ − δj )2 ,
2 4
2
1 1
∣ + η + (θ − δj )i∣ = + η + η 2 + (θ − δj )2 .
2 4
Hence if η > 0, then
1 1
∣− + η + (θ − δj )i∣ < ∣ + η + (θ − δj )i∣
2 2
for all j, while if η < 0, then the inequality goes the other way. Therefore equa-
tion (2.11) holds only if η = 0, and the proof follows.” Although an ordinary
conversation was very stressful for Sam, the same could not be said for discussing
mathematics.
“Awesome,” said Professor Blakeley. “But what does this have to do with the
problem of showing that every zero of the polynomial Pk,n (x) of equation (2.10)
has real part − k2 ?”
There were quite a few volunteers, and Patrick was chosen. “Let E be the
operator on polynomials P (x) defined by EP (x) = P (x + 1). Then
k
k
(E − 1)k = ∑ (−1)k−j ( )E j ,
j=0 j
 2. POLYNOMIALS 19

so
Pk,n (x) = (E − 1)k xn .
Every zero of xn has real part 0. By what we have just shown, each time we apply
E − 1 we lower the real part of every zero by 12 . Thus every zero of Pk,n (x) has real
part − k2 .”
“Yep, that about wraps it up! Nice job, everyone! Well, it looks like time is up
for today’s class. I hope you have learned some interesting facts about polynomials,
and see you soon at lunch!”
 CHAPTER 3

Base Mathematics

PROBLEM LIST

10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 22, 24, 31, 100, ?, 10000 22
22
1, 1, 1, ?, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, . . . 22
Lucas’s theorem on binomial coefficients mod p 23
Kummer’s theorem on largest power of p dividing (nk) 24
de Polignac’s formula on largest power of p dividing n! 24
100/9899 and
√ Fibonacci numbers 24
5000 − 700 51 and Catalan numbers 25
∑n≥0 1/Cn 25
Maclaurin series for (sin−1 x)2 25
Maclaurin series for cos t (sin−1 x) 25
∑n≥0 (4 − 3n)/Cn 26
Greedy sequence with no three terms in arithmetic progression 26
Growth rate of “irregular” sequences with no three terms
in arithmetic progression 27
Smallest growth rate of sequence with no three terms
in arithmetic progression 27
Infinitely many primes without the digit k 28
∑p 1/p diverges (p prime) 28
Computing the nth binary digit of π 29
Morse-Hedlund sequence is cubefree 29
Infinite squarefree binary sequence 29
Infinite squarefree ternary sequence 29
Fair allocation of gifts to children 30
Largest power of x − 1 dividing ∑m i=1 (x − x )
ai bi
31
Infinite binary sequence with almost every prefix ending in a square 31
Fibonacci word is not eventually periodic 31
Fibonacci word prefixes end in square of length at most five 31
Fibonacci word invariant under 0 → 01 and 1 → 0 31
Average length of shortest square suffix of a Fibonacci word prefix 31

21
22 3. BASE MATHEMATICS

“As a segue into today’s topic,” said Professor Blakeley as soon as the students
were seated, “here is a little puzzle. I’m sure some of you have seen it already.
What is the missing number?”
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 22, 24, 31, 100, ?, 10000

Most of the students had seen this puzzle, but a few had not. After giving
them a little time to think about it, Professor Blakeley said, “Here is a hint—the
sequence is constant.”
This hint seemed only to deepen the mystery for the students not already
familiar with the problem, but then Fumei saw the light. “I got it!” she said.
“Great!” said Professor Blakeley. “Please explain.”
“All the terms are equal to 16,” said Fumei. They are just written in different
bases, beginning with base 16, then 15, 14, down to base 2. So the missing number
is 16 in base 3, which is 121.”
“Okay! So today we will look some more at base mathematics. Not to worry,
I mean number bases, like writing integers in base 10. But before we begin, there
are a couple of other ‘find the missing term’ puzzles that everyone should know.
The first is the following.”

Half the students had seen this puzzle before. A couple of the others got it
quickly. For the remaining holdouts Professor Blakeley gave a hint. “Note that
each term is symmetrical about a vertical line.” Now the solution became clear to
those still in the dark.
“The second missing number puzzle is actually quite a bit more mathematical.
Here it is:
1, 1, 1, ?, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, . . . .
Given that the missing number f (4) is not 1, what is it?”
Now the students were completely mystified. Was this some kind of obscure
joke? It was not hard to come up with a highly contrived answer like the sequence
1 + δ4n , where δij is the Kronecker delta, but not even Professor Blakeley could be
that lame.
Professor Blakeley continued, “There really is a nice answer to this question!
Namely, let f (n) be the number of inequivalent differentiable structures that can
be put on Rn . By a result of Stallings, f (n) = 1 if n ≠ 4. Freedman showed that
f (4) > 1, and Taubes showed that in fact f (4) = c, the cardinality of the continuum
(or of the real numbers). Thus the missing number is c.”
The students were quite amazed at this dichotomy between n = 4 and n ≠ 4,
though not all of them knew exactly what was meant by inequivalent differentiable
structures. When asked about this by Clayton, Professor Blakeley replied, “You
need to understand the definition of a differentiable manifold. Very roughly, it is
a space M on which we can do calculus. More precisely, we want to cover M with
open sets Uα such that we are given maps ϕα ∶ Uα → Rn that are homeomorphisms
onto an open subset of Rn , where the transition maps between the induced coordi-
nate systems on an intersection Uα ∩ Uβ are infinitely differentiable. You can look
 3. BASE MATHEMATICS 23

up exactly what this means. You can imagine what it means for two differentiable
manifolds M and N to have equivalent (or diffeomorphic) differentiable structures:
there should be a bijection f ∶ M → N such that f and f −1 are infinitely differen-
tiable. Again you can look up precisely what this means, but the upshot is that
there is only one way to do calculus on Rn for n ≠ 4, but lots of ways for n = 4.
Thus there is a good opportunity to write quite a few textbooks on four-dimensional
calculus.”
After a short break it was time to get back to business.
“There doesn’t seem to be much connection between base b representations of
real numbers and ‘serious’ mathematics,” said Professor Blakeley. “For instance,√
no one has any idea how to prove or disprove that the decimal expansion of 2 has
infinitely many zeros or that infinitely many primes are palindromes (read the same
backwards as forwards) in base √ 10. On the other hand, I hope all of you can show
that the binary expansion of 2 indeed does have infinitely many 0’s and infinitely
many 1’s. Can anyone give me some examples of where the base b expansion does
appear in a noncontrived way, at least for certain b?”
“Lucas’s theorem,” replied Daniel immediately.
This suggestion was soon followed by various other contributions, including
Kummer’s theorem.
“Not bad!” said Professor Blakeley. “We don’t have time to go into all your
suggestions, so let’s discuss two of the most striking examples, Lucas’s and Kum-
mer’s theorem. I will state these results for the benefit of those who haven’t seen
them or whose memory is hazy.
“Lucas’s theorem asserts that if p is prime and if n = ∑i≥0 ai pi and k = ∑i≥0 bi pi
are the base p expansions of the positive integers n and k (so 0 ≤ ai < p and
0 ≤ bi < p), then
n ai
( ) ≡ ∏ ( ) (mod p).
k i≥0 bi
If f (x) and g(x) are polynomials with integer coefficients, I will write f (x) ≡
g(x) (mod p), or simply f (x) ≡ g(x), to mean that all coefficients of f (x) − g(x) are
divisible by p. Since (1 + x)p ≡ 1 + xp (mod p) (the so-called ‘sophomore’s dream’),
we have
n k
∑ ( )x = (1 + x)
n

k≥0 k
i
= (1 + x)∑ ai p
i ai
≡ ∏ (1 + x )
p
i≥0

⎛ ai b pi ⎞
≡ ∏ ∑ ( )x i .
⎝
i≥0 bi ≥0 bi ⎠

Taking the coefficient of xk on both sides and using the uniqueness of the base p
expansion k = ∑ bi pi gives the result.
“As an application, how many numbers in the nth row of Pascal’s triangle, i.e.,
the numbers (nk) for k ≥ 0, are not divisible by p?”
Several hands went up, and Professor Blakeley pointed to Jung Wook. “If
n = ∑ ai pi as before, then the number is ∏i (1 + ai ).”
“And why is that?”
24 3. BASE MATHEMATICS

“We need each bi to satisfy bi ≤ ai , so there are ai + 1 choices for bi .”

“Super! Now someone mentioned Kummer’s theorem. Who can explain that?”
Only Daniel and Sandra volunteered, and Sandra was chosen. “Kummer’s
theorem says that the largest power of p dividing (nk) is equal to the number of
carries in adding k and p − k in base p using the usual addition algorithm.”
“Proof?” asked Professor Blakeley.
“I don’t remember exactly, but you just have to fool around with de Polignac’s
formula.”
Wow, thought Professor Blakeley, she knows the name de Polignac. I bet I can
stump her with the next question. “And what is de Polignac’s full name?”
Silence.
“Ah, no one knows. Don’t they teach history anymore? It is Alphonse Armand
Charles Georges Marie de Polignac. The formula is due originally to Legendre and
is also called Legendre’s formula. Thus we have a partial instantiation of Stigler’s
law of eponymy: no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. This
is named after Stephen Stigler, who wrote about it in 1980. Note, however, that
Stigler’s law of eponymy implies that Stigler’s law of eponymy was not originally
discovered by Stigler.
“Let me remind you of what the Legendre/de Polignac formula says, namely,
if p is prime, then the exponent of the largest power of p dividing n! is ⌊ np ⌋ + ⌊ pn2 ⌋ +
⌊ pn3 ⌋ + . . . . I won’t insult you by asking for a proof. Anyway, Kummer’s theorem
follows by keeping careful track of the powers of p dividing n!, k!, and (n − k)!.
“Now let’s look at a rather frivolous instance of base mathematics: getting the
decimal expansion (or any base b) to behave nicely. For instance,
100
= 0.010102030508133455 . . . .
9899
Taking the digits after the decimal point two at a time generates the Fibonacci
numbers 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 34, 55, . . . . What’s going on?”
Hands quickly shot up, and Professor Blakeley pointed to Clayton. “We can
write
100 1/100
= 1 .
9899 1 − 100 1
− 10000
If Fn is the nth Fibonacci number, then
1
∑ Fn+1 x =
n
(3.1) .
n≥0 1 − x − x2
Put x = 1
100
and divide by 100 to get
Fn 100
∑ n
= .
n≥1 100 9899
Fn
When Fn has at most two digits, then 100 n has the decimal expansion, starting

after the decimal point, consisting of 2n − 2 0’s followed by the digits of Fn (with
a leading 0 if Fn has just one digit), so adding all of these up will give what you
want, until there is some spillover from the first three-digit Fibonacci number.”
“Good explanation!” said Professor Blakeley. “It should also √
be pointed out
that the left-hand side of equation (3.1) converges for ∣x∣ < −1+2 5 = 0.618 . . . , so
there is no problem with convergence when x = 100 1
.
 3. BASE MATHEMATICS 25

“So how about

√
5000 − 700 51 = 1.00010002000500140042013204291430 . . . ?
Looking at the digits in groups of four gives the sequence 1, 1, 2, 5, 14, 42, 132,
429, 1430, . . . . Does anyone recognize it?”
Emiliano was chosen among the volunteers. “These are the Catalan numbers
Cn = n+1
1
(2n
n
). I don’t remember exactly the formula for the generating function
C(x) = ∑n≥0 Cn xn = 1 + x + 2x2 + . . . , but it should be the case that
√
F (1/10000) = 5000 − 700 51.
Then we can argue the same way Clayton did.”
“Exactly right!” said Professor Blakeley. “In fact, we have
1 √
C(x) = (1 − 1 − 4x).
2x
It is a happy accident that the numerator of 1 − 100004
, namely 2499, is divisible
√ √
by 7 , so F (1/10000) can be written using 51 rather than 2499. I assume
2

that everyone here is familiar with Catalan numbers, one of the most uniquitous
sequences appearing in mathematics. In fact, the OEIS1 entry on Catalan numbers
(A000108) states that ‘(t)his is probably the longest entry in the OEIS, and rightly
so.’
“By the way, does anyone know the value of the sum
1
S ∶= ∑ ?
n≥0 Cn
As a hint, the first four terms are
1 1
1+1+ + = 2.7. ”
2 5

None of the students bothered to make the obvious conjecture.

“I see you have figured it out,” continued Professor Blakeley. “After all, the
only sensible guess that fits the data is
√
3 3π
(3.2) S =2+ = 2.806133 . . . .
27
You may be wondering how to prove such a formula. The key is the well-known
Maclaurin series for (sin−1 x)2 , namely,
22n−1 2n
(3.3) (sin−1 x)2 = ∑ x .
n≥1 n ( n )
2 2n

One clever way to prove equation (3.3) is to first show that

x2n
(3.4) cos t (sin−1 x) = ∑ (−1)n t2 (t2 − 22 )(t2 − 42 )⋯(t2 − (2n − 2)2 ) .
n≥0 (2n)!
Any thoughts on how to do this without a lot of computation?”
Soon there were some volunteers, and the Professor pointed to Patrick. “We
have
2n
2n t
cos t (sin−1 x) = ∑ (−1)n (sin−1 x) .
n≥0 (2n)!
1
The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, oeis.org.
26 3. BASE MATHEMATICS

Since sin−1 x = x + . . . , we see that the coefficient of x2n /(2n)! in cos(t sin−1 x) is
an even polynomial Pn (t) of degree 2n and leading coefficient (−1)n . If k ∈ Z, then
cos 2kθ is an even polynomial in cos θ of degree 2k. Moreover, cos2 (sin−1 x) = 1−x2 .
Hence cos 2k(sin−1 x) is an even polynomial in x of degree 2k. For instance, I happen
to remember that
cos 4(sin−1 x) = 8x4 − 8x2 + 1.
It follows that Pn (±2k) = 0 for ∣k∣ < n. We now know all the zeros and the leading
coefficient to Pn (t), so we get
Pn (t) = (−1)n t2 (t2 − 22 )(t2 − 42 )⋯(t2 − (2n − 2)2 ). ”
“Super! And how does this help us prove equation (3.3), i.e., the expansion of
(sin−1 x)2 ?”
It seemed to Professor Blakeley that the students were taking an inordinate
amount of time to find the simple trick. Finally Daniel said, “Take the coefficient
of t2 !”
“Exactly! And by taking the coefficient of t2k we get the expansion of
−1
(sin x)2k , though these expressions become more and more complicated as k in-
creases. So finally, we need to use equation
√ (3.3) to evaluate ∑n≥0 1/Cn .”
Fumei volunteered. “Substitute 12 x for x and apply the operator
d 2 d d
2 x x
dx dx dx
n
x
to equation (3.3). The left-hand side becomes ∑n≥0 C n
. It should be routine to
apply this operator to the right-hand side and then set x = 1.”
“You are right about the right. After we apply your procedure and simplify,
we obtain √ −1 1 √
xn 2(x + 8) 24 x sin ( 2 x)
∑ = + .
n≥0 Cn (4 − x)2 (4 − x)5/2
If we set x = 1, then we get the claimed equation (3.2).
“To test your understanding, today’s problem set includes the evaluation of the
sum ∑n≥0 (4 − 3n)/Cn .
“Let me give one further example of base mathematics which is a little more in-
teresting mathematically. While this result can be formulated without any mention
of number bases, it is most elegantly stated in terms of them. Define a sequence
a0 , a1 , . . . of nonnegative integers recursively as follows: an is the least nonnegative
integer greater than an−1 such that no three of the numbers a0 , a1 , . . . , an form an
arithmetic progression. Thus a0 = 0 and a1 = 1. Since 0,1,2 form an arithmetic pro-
gression, we have a2 = 3. Similarly a3 = 4. Since we have arithmetic progressions
1,3,5; 0,3,6; 1,4,7; 0,4,8, we have a4 = 9. What is an , e.g., a1000000 ?”
Patrick quickly computed that the sequence begins
0, 1, 3, 4, 9, 10, 12, 13, 27, 28, 30, 31, 36, 37, 39, 40, 81, 82, . . . .
Everyone saw the striking gaps from 4 to 9, 13 to 27, and 40 to 81, i.e., from
1
2
(3n − 1) to 3n . And between these gaps the differences were the same as starting
from the beginning. For instance, the differences between consecutive terms from
27 to 40 are 1,2,1,5,1,2,1, which are the same as the gaps between consecutive terms
from 0 to 13. This made it easy to compute recursively the value a1000000 , and in
fact it didn’t take Patrick long to announce that a1000000 = 1726672221.
 3. BASE MATHEMATICS 27

“So what is an elegant nonrecursive description of an in general?” asked Pro-

fessor Blakeley.
After politely waiting a while he continued, “I know eventually you can work
this out, but I will save some time and just tell you the answer. Namely, write n
in binary and read it in ternary! Thus
1000000 = 219 + 218 + 217 + 216 + 214 + 29 + 26 ,
so
a1000000 = 319 + 318 + 317 + 316 + 314 + 39 + 36 .
Of course it’s easy to prove this result by induction once it’s guessed, but it’s still
very cute!
“There are lots of known generalizations. For instance, instead of starting with
a0 = 0, we could instead let k > 0 and start with a0 = 0 and a1 = k. For n ≥ 2
we define an to be the least positive integer greater than an−1 so that no three of
a0 , a1 , . . . , an are in arithmetic progression. You can play around with this for a
while and see that a curious dichotomy arises. When k is of the form 3j or 2 ⋅ 3j ,
which we call the regular values of k, there is a nice explicit description of an
analogous to the case k = 1 (the case we just considered). For regular k the rate of
growth of an is given by
1 an an
(3.5) = lim inf α < lim sup α = 1,
2 n→∞ n n→∞ n
where α = log 3
log 2
= 1.58496 . . . .
“For other (irregular) values of k, the sequence appears to be very unpre-
dictable. Let me recall the notation f (n) ∼ g(n), read ‘f (n) is asymptotic to g(n),’
if
f (n)
lim = 1.
n→∞ g(n)

There is a simple heuristic argument about the rate of growth of an if the sequence
behaves sufficiently randomly. Think of pn as the ‘probability’ that n appears in
the sequence. Now n will appear in the sequence if and only if n − i and n − 2i do
not appear for 1 ≤ i ≤ n/2. If these events are independent, then we obtain
⌊n/2⌋
(3.6) pn = ∏ (1 − pn−i pn−2i ), n ≥ 2.
i=1

For the recurrence (3.6) with the initial conditions p0 = p1 = .5, which corresponds
to a ‘random’ start, one can show that
√
p1 + p2 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + pn ∼ c n log n,
where
√ c is a positive constant. Hence when k is irregular we would expect that
n ∼ an log an , or
c′ n 2
(3.7) an ∼ .
log n
This estimate agrees quite well with the numerical evidence, but nothing has been
proved. Note that equation (3.7) yields a faster rate of growth than (3.5).
“I could mention the original motivation for the first sequence (corresponding
to k = 1). We can ask for the size r3 (n) of the largest subset of [n] containing
no three terms in an arithmetic progression. A natural conjecture is that we can
28 3. BASE MATHEMATICS

construct this subset using a greedy algorithm, which leads to our first sequence.
However, this conjecture is false. The best current bounds are
√
(log log n)4
(3.8) n2− 8 log n
< r3 (n) < c n
log n
for some constant c > 0. As a bonus problem you can try to improve either the
upper or lower bound, or even both.
“We can also ask for the least rate of growth among all infinite sequences
0 = e0 < e1 < e2 < ⋯ that don’t contain three terms in arithmetic progression. In
this direction, it is known that there is such a sequence satisfying
√
(3.9) #{i ∶ ei < n} > n exp(−c log n)
for all n ≥ 1. If you are having trouble understanding what this bound means, note
that for > 0 we have
n1− = n exp(− log n).
√
Since log n grows more slowly than log n, this means that #{i ∶ ei < n} grows
faster that n1− for any > 0.”
It was time for a short break. Professor Blakeley and some students slipped out
for some coffee. When they returned the Professor didn’t waste any time getting
back to business. “Although base mathematics tends to be somewhat frivolous
and not related to serious mathematics (whatever that means), there are some
exceptions. For instance, James Maynard has shown that for any 0 ≤ k ≤ 9 there
are infinitely many primes that don’t have the digit k in their decimal expansion.
The proof is a very intricate argument using many tools from analytic number
theory. Maynard’s result is probably quite far from the strongest result along these
lines, since for instance it is plausible on probabilistic grounds, related to the fact
that the sum of the reciprocal of the primes diverges, that there are infinitely many
primes of the form (10n −1)/9, i.e., with only the digit 1 in their decimal expansion.
“By the way, does anyone know a simple proof that ∑p 1/p diverges, where p
ranges over all primes?”
“It’s immediate from the prime number theorem,” suggested Fumei.
“That is true, but I wouldn’t call this proof ‘simple.’ The prime number the-
orem is not an easy result. How about a proof using only elementary calculus, for
instance?”
After a little while Jung Wook volunteered. “Consider for x > 0 the product
1
f (x) = ∏
p<x 1 − 1
p
1 1
= ∏ (1 + + + ...),
p<x p p2
where p is prime. When we expand this product, we will obtain a sum of terms
1/n, including all n < x, since all prime factors of such n are also less than x. Thus
1
f (x) > ∑ → ∞ as x → ∞.
1≤n<x n

1
Hence the product ∏p 1−(1/p) diverges to ∞, so ∏p (1 − p1 ) diverges to 0. By a
theorem of elementary calculus, ∑p p1 diverges.”
 3. BASE MATHEMATICS 29

“Excellent argument! Jung Wook is using the fact that if 0 < ai < 1 for all i and
ai → 0, then ∏(1 − ai ) = 0 if and only if ∑ ai = ∞. Jung Wook’s proof is essentially
the limiting s = 1 case of Euler’s famous product formula for the Riemann zeta
function:
1 1
ζ(s) ∶= ∑ s = ∏ ,
n≥1 n p 1 − p−s
which converges for s > 1.
“Now that we have discussed primes with only 1’s in their decimal expansion,
as an exercise I leave it to you to find all primes which contain only 2’s in their
decimal expansions.”
The students did not find this to be a challenging exercise. Professor Blake-
ley continued, “A second interesting result about base mathematics concerns the
binary expansion of π. Bailey, Borwein, and Plouffe found a ‘spigot algorithm’ for
computing the nth binary digit of π without computing any of the preceding digits!
This algorithm is based on the formula
1 4 2 1 1
π= ∑[ ( − − − )] ,
k≥0 16 8k + 1 8k + 4 8k + 5 8k + 6
k

discovered by Simon Plouffe in 1995.

“Thus far we have considered only pure base mathematics, with no thought to
applications. Can anyone think of some practical uses of number bases, other than
the obvious fact that they are the most convenient way to represent numbers in
order to do arithmetic?”
“Computers,” said Daniel, with other students nodding agreement.
“Yes, that one is obvious,” said Professor Blakeley. “Computers compute in
binary, though that really comes under the rubric of facilitating arithmetic. For
another connection with binary expansions, who is familiar with the Morse-Hedlund
sequence, also called the Prouhet-Thue-Morse sequence?”
Three hands went up, and Professor Blakeley selected Daniel to explain. “One
way to define it is recursively. Set t0 = 0. Once we have defined t0 , t1 , . . . , t2n −1 ,
define the next 2n terms to be the binary complement of the first 2n terms, i.e.,
t2n +j = 1 − tj for 0 ≤ j ≤ 2n − 1. Thus we build up the sequence as 0, then 01, then
0110, then 01101001, etc.”
“Very nice definition!” said Professor Blakeley. “What has it got to do with
binary expansions?”
Clayton said, “The term tn is congruent modulo 2 to the number of 1’s in the
binary expansion of n.”
“Exactly! It’s not such a significant connection since we can prove what we
want about this sequence without using this description, but it certainly gives a
fast algorithm for computing tn . What are some interesting properties of this
sequence?”
“If I remember correctly, it is cubefree,” replied Clayton.
“Yes, this means that we cannot find a factor (a sequence of consecutive terms)
of the form www, where w is any nonempty word (sequence) in the letters 0 and
1. Can one find an infinite binary word (or sequence) that is in fact squarefree?”
There were many volunteers, and Sandra was chosen. “Obviously not. If we
begin with 0, then the next term must be 1, then 0, and then we are stuck.”
“Well, what about an infinite word of 0’s, 1’s, and 2’s that is squarefree.”
30 3. BASE MATHEMATICS

Although a couple of students vaguely remembered seeing some examples, no

one could be more specific. Professor Blakeley said, “Let vn be the number of
1’s between the nth and (n + 1)st occurrence of 0 in the Morse-Hedlund sequence
t0 , t1 , . . . , so (v0 , v1 , . . . ) = (2, 1, 0, 2, 0, 1, 2, 1, 0, 1, 2, . . . ). It is a nice exercise to show
that this word is squarefree. There are many more examples. In fact, the number of
such sequences is the cardinality of the continuum. Some further interesting facts
about ternary squarefree words are the following:
● The minimum density of a letter in an infinite ternary squarefree word is
883/3215 = 0.2746 . . . . Not so easy to guess! Here the density dw (j) of a
letter j in the word w = a1 a2 ⋯ is defined to be
dw (j) = lim inf #{i ∶ 1 ≤ i ≤ n, ai = j}.
n→∞
In the present situation we can take the limit instead of the lim inf.
● The maximum density of a letter in an infinite ternary squarefree word is
255/653 = 0.3905 . . . . Again we can take the limit instead of the lim inf.
● Suppose that w = a1 a2 ⋯ is an infinite word in the four letters 0,1,2,∗,
with the property that however we replace each ∗ with 0,1, or 2, a square-
free word is obtained. (The letter ∗ is called a wildcard.) What is the
maximum possible density of the ∗’s? The surprising large answer is that
this maximum density is exactly 3/16 = 0.1875. Once again we can take
the limit instead of the lim inf in the definition of density. Note that this
result is much stronger than the statement that there exists a continuum
number of ternary squarefree words.
“The Morse-Hedlund sequence has a lot of other cool mathematical properties,
but now let me mention an application I alluded to earlier. It could be called a
‘psychological’ application. It is another ‘fair allocation’ problem similar to the
fair cake-cutting we discussed on the first day.2 Suppose a very generous mother
(perhaps too generous) brings home sixteen roughly comparable gifts for her two
young children. She flips a coin to see who chooses the first gift, and then the
children sequentially choose their favorite remaining gift. What is the fairest way
for the children to choose eight gifts each, that is, in what order should the choosing
be done? Obviously it would be very unfair to let one child have the first eight
choices, for instance.
“If there were just two gifts, then there is no option. One child chooses first,
and the other takes the remaining gift. With four gifts one child (denoted 0) chooses
first, and the other (denoted 1) should choose second. Clearly it would be more fair
for child 1 to now choose next. Otherwise if the children valued the gifts equally, the
gifts can be put in pairs such that each child has one gift in each pair, and 0 always
has the better gift in each pair. So the fairest sequence is 0110. Now if there were
eight gifts, it seems reasonable that the same procedure for the second four gifts
should be followed as for the first four, but with the roles of 0 and 1 reversed. Thus
we get 01101001. By the same reasoning, for sixteen gifts we get 0110100110010110.
For 2n gifts we are using the first 2n terms of the Morse-Hedlund sequence.
“Of course I am not proving anything since I haven’t defined what it means for
one sequence of choices to be fairer than another. We could imagine other possibili-
ties. For instance, suppose there are 2m gifts for any positive integer m. If one child
chooses at times a1 , . . . , am and the other at b1 , . . . , bm (so {a1 , . . . , am , b1 , . . . , bm } =
2 Chapter 1
 3. BASE MATHEMATICS 31

[2m]), then we could try to maximize k such that ∑i aji = ∑i bji for all 1 ≤ j ≤ k.
Equivalently, we want the polynomial ∑i xai − ∑i xbi to be divisible by the largest
possible power of x − 1.
“For the first 2n terms of the Morse-Hedlund sequence, it is not hard to see
n−1
that the polynomial in question is given by x(1 − x)(1 − x2 )(1 − x4 )⋯(1 − x2 ),
which has x = 1 as a zero of multiplicity n. Somewhat surprisingly, it is not known
whether this is best possible for n ≥ 8. In particular, does there exist a polynomial
of degree 255 with coefficients ±1 that is divisible by (x−1)9 ? Moreover, it is known
that there exists a polynomial p(x) of degree 47 with coefficients ±1 that is divisible
by (x − 1)6 .”
Professor Blakeley paused briefly to let his remarks sink in and then contin-
ued, “The infinite squarefree sequence of 0’s, 1’s, and 2’s reminds me of a kind of
‘opposite’ problem. Let w be an infinite binary sequence b1 b2 ⋯ with the property
that for all n sufficiently large, the prefix b1 b2 ⋯bn ends in a square, i.e., has the
form uv 2 , where u, v are binary words and v is nonempty. Does it follow that w is
eventually periodic? What if we also require that the v’s have bounded length?”
It was hard for the students to get any feeling for this problem. Some ran-
dom experimenting did not yield any definitive result. It seemed unlikely that an
example existed that wasn’t eventually periodic, especially if the v’s had bounded
length.
Professor Blakeley soon put an end to these thoughts. “Set w0 = 0 and w1 = 01.
Then recursively define
wn = wn−1 wn−2 , n ≥ 2,
where wn−1 wn−2 denotes the product (concatenation) of words. Define the Fi-
bonacci word
w = lim wn = 01001010010010100101001 . . . .
n→∞
It should be clear that w is not eventually periodic. By analyzing a few cases, it
is not hard to show that every prefix of length at least six can be written as uv 2 ,
where v is a nonempty word of length at most five. The Fibonacci word also has
the interesting characterization of being the unique nonempty binary word which
is invariant under replacing each 0 with 01 and each 1 with 0.
“It is interesting to ask for the average length of v (as defined above), where
we always take v to be as short as possible. Thus if γn is the prefix of w of length
n, then define an for n ≥ 6 to be the length of the shortest nonempty word v for
which γn = uv 2 . For instance,
(a6 , a7 , . . . ) = (3, 2, 2, 1, 5, 3, 1, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 5, 3, . . . ).
On today’s problem set you are asked to show that
1 √
lim (a6 + a7 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + an ) = 7 − 2 5 = 2.527864 . . . .
n→∞ n

“Going back to applications of number bases, can anyone think of a practical

application where more than one base is involved?”
After waiting a respectful amount of time for a response, Professor Blakeley
continued, “It gives me great pleasure to announce for the first time my idea for
helping to solve the obesity epidemic. I got the idea when I read that women’s
clothing sizes have been decreasing over the years. A size 16 dress in 1958 would
be around size 8 today.”
32 3. BASE MATHEMATICS

After a pause for dramatic effect, Professor Blakeley became quite excited and
said, “A patient at a Blakeley Weight Control Clinic would tell a staff mathemati-
cian their ideal weight. The mathematician would first weigh the patient with a
Blakeley scale that is set to 10. This would show the patient’s weight in pounds
(there could also be a setting for kilograms) in ordinary decimal notation. For in-
stance, the ideal weight might be 118 pounds and actual weight 215 pounds. The
mathematician would use the patented Blakeley weight base calculator to ascertain
that the best possible base is 14. The scale would be set for 14, and lo!, the patient’s
weight immediately becomes 115 pounds in base 14. No dieting, no exercise, no
surgery, just a simple five-minute procedure!”
“But what if there is no good approximation to the ideal weight in any base
because there are always digits greater than nine?” asked Patrick, who had been
doing some computing. “For instance, a 300 pound person could only get down to
150 pounds (in base 15) before the digits became greater than nine.”
“An excellent question!” said Professor Blakeley. “We would tell the patient
that either our method can only get them down to 150 pounds, or with a little
traditional dieting, we can then offer a more substantial weight reduction. For
instance, if a 300 pound person could get their weight to 290, then they would
weigh only 122 pounds in base 16. It might even be possible to gain traditional
pounds in order to reduce their Blakeley weight! For instance, if a 300 pound person
gained ten pounds, then they would weigh 136 in base 16 and only 114 in base 17.
Of course we would offer a discount if it was necessary to gain or lose a little weight
before the treatment begins.
“Note that my weight control technique can also be applied to underweight
patients. For instance, a 100 pound person becomes 121 pounds in base 9 and 144
pounds in base 8.
“I hope soon to start raising some funds for a startup company using my rev-
olutionary weight control idea.”
The students could not help but agree that Professor Blakeley had an ingenious
idea for a real-world application of mathematics. However, a problem might arise
if some clever customer realized that after their treatment he or she looked and
felt exactly the same as before the treatment. The students were too polite to let
Professor Blakeley know about this possible snag in his entrepreneurial aspirations.
 CHAPTER 4

A Mysterious Visitor

PROBLEM LIST

An inequality involving Hn = 1 + 12 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + n1 34
Expected number of cycles of a random permutation 34
Expected number of cycles of length k of a random permutation 35
Expected length of the longest cycle of a random permutation 35

33
34 4. A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR

After the usual greeting to the students, Professor Blakeley started the next
class by saying, “Since we might need a little time to get our brains fully operational,
let’s begin with an elementary inequality. Let
1 1 1
Hn = 1 + + + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + ,
2 3 n
called a harmonic number. Who sees how to show that for all n ≥ 1, we have
∑ d ≤ Hn + (log Hn )e
Hn
(4.1) ?
d∣n

Of course ∑d∣n means that the sum is over all positive divisors d of n. The sum on
the left is often denoted σ(n), the sum of the divisors of n. Any ideas?”
“Hn is close to log n + γ, where γ is Euler’s constant,” suggested Patrick.
“Maybe we should substitute this for Hn . Let’s see, we get
σ(n) ≤ log n + γ + log(log n + γ) ⋅ neγ .
Maybe this isn’t getting anywhere.”
“It doesn’t look good,” admitted Professor Blakeley. “Let’s think for another
five minutes.”
Five minutes passed quickly, and no one had any ideas. “Rats!” said Profes-
sor Blakeley. “I was hoping someone could do it. Jeff Lagarias showed that this
inequality is equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis, so it would have been nice to
solve it now.”
“What!” various people cried out. “The Riemann hypothesis!”
“You said it was easy!” said Emiliano.
“I said it was elementary,” replied Professor Blakeley. “I meant in regard to
its statement, not its solution. It is the most elementary statement known that is
equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis. Because there seems to be a lot of interest
in this conjecture, I am happy to say that if anyone can solve this problem before
the next class, I will exempt them from the next problem set.”
“Wow!” said Clayton. “Finally I have some motivation to work on the Riemann
hypothesis!”
Professor Blakeley then said, “Well, perhaps we’ll have more success with an-
other problem. Let’s continue to look at the harmonic numbers Hn . Let Sn denote
the symmetric group of all permutations of 1, 2, . . . , n. By the way, the symbol S is
a Fraktur upper case S. It is a lot of fun to learn the Fraktur alphabet and confound
your colleagues with difficult-to-write symbols such as W, P, Y, and V. Can you
guess what are the corresponding Roman letters?
“Getting back to mathematics, if a permutation w is chosen at random from Sn
with the uniform distribution, what is the expected number f (n) of cycles of w in
its disjoint cycle decomposition? For instance, S3 has one permutation with three
cycles, three with two cycles, and two with one cycle, so f (3) = 16 (1 ⋅ 3 + 3 ⋅ 2 + 2 ⋅ 1) =
11
6
.”
This time Clayton was the first to raise his hand. “If c(n, k) denotes the number
of permutations in Sn with k cycles, then
n
∑ c(n, k)x = x(x + 1)(x + 2)⋯(x + n − 1).
k
(4.2)
k=1
To get the expectation we can differentiate, set x = 1, and divide by n!. This gives
f (n) = 1 + 12 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + n1 = Hn .”
 4. A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 35

“A nice use of generating functions!” said Professor Blakeley. “I hope everyone

knows equation (4.2) from Combinatorics 101. The numbers c(n, k) are called the
signless Stirling numbers of the first kind. Equation (4.2) is most easily proved by
induction from the recurrence
c(n + 1, k) = c(n, k − 1) + nc(n, k),
where c(n, k − 1) counts permutations w ∈ Sn+1 satisfying w(n + 1) = n + 1, and
nc(n, k) counts the remaining permutations.
“We got such a simple answer that it is natural to ask if there is some more
conceptual way to see it, avoiding induction, generating functions, etc. In general,
in enumerative combinatorics induction is bad, though I admit that sometimes it
is unavoidable.”
Fumei said, “It seems plausible that the expected number of k-cycles (cycles of
length k) of a random permutation in Sn is 1/k for 1 ≤ k ≤ n. I know this is true
for k = 1, because for any group G of permutations of a finite set, the Frobenius-
Burnside lemma says that the average number of fixed points of a permutation in
G is equal to the number of orbits of G. If my statement is true for all k, then we
get that the expected number of cycles is 1 + 12 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + n1 .”
“Exactly! And why is the expected number of k cycles equal to 1/k? We want
to avoid induction and generating functions.”
It didn’t take long for the class to realize that the assertion for k cycles boiled
down to showing that for fixed 1 ≤ i ≤ n and 1 ≤ k ≤ n, the probability that i
belonged to a k-cycle is 1/n (independent from k). Since a k-cycle has k elements,
it would follow that the expected number of k-cycles is
1 n 1 1
∑ = .
k i=1 n k
No one came up with an argument sufficiently elegant to satisfy Professor Blake-
ley for the probability that i belonged to a k-cycle, so the Professor said that he
would delay a satisfactory proof until later, when he covered the topic of hidden
independence and uniformity1 .
“Right now let’s consider instead a more subtle question about the cycle lengths
of permutations: what is the expected length L(n) of the longest cycle in a random
permutation (uniformly distributed as usual) w ∈ Sn ? Any ideas?”
“Since the average number of cycles is about log n, the average length of the
longest cycle is at least n/(log n),” said Daniel.
“That seems quite plausible,” said Professor Blakeley. “How do you make it
rigorous?”
Daniel started thinking and writing furiously, as several hands went up. After
a short while he said, “Now I see it! Cauchy-Schwarz!”
“Please explain.”
“Let κ(w) be the number of cycles of w and λ(w) the length of√the longest cycle.
√
Clearly κ(w)λ(w) ≥ n. If E denotes expectation, then n ≤ E( κ(w)λ(w)). By
Cauchy-Schwarz,
√ 2
n ≤ E ( κ(w)λ(w)) ≤ E(κ(w))E(λ(w)),
so E(λ(w)) ≥ n/E(κ(w)).”
1
Chapter 7
36 4. A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR

“Excellent! Now is n/(log n) about the right answer, or can we do better?

Could it be that E(λ(w)) is linear in n?”
No one replied, but after a while Sam stopped working, a strong indication that
he had made progress. Professor Blakeley was reminded of an anecdote, perhaps
apocryphal, told about William Tutte, a famous 20th century combinatorialist who
was notoriously shy. According to the story, when Tutte was a graduate student
his thesis adviser gave him a conjecture to work on. Several months later, after no
further contact with Tutte, the adviser passed him in the hallway and remembered
his previous encounter with Tutte. The adviser stopped Tutte and asked, “Were
you able to solve the conjecture?” Tutte replied that he had not and walked away.
The adviser recalled Tutte’s extreme shyness and chased after him. When the
adviser caught up to Tutte he asked, “Well, did you find a counterexample?” Tutte
nodded affirmatively.
Professor Blakeley then asked Sam if he had made any progress. “I think I can
show that the expectation L(n) is bounded below by 12 n, but it looks like it won’t
be easy to show that lim L(n)/n exists and to compute it precisely.”
“Very interesting,” said Professor Blakeley. “How did you get a lower bound
1
2
n?”
“Let k > n/2. The number of permutations whose largest cycle has length k is
(nk)(k − 1)!(n − k)! = n!/k, since there will be a unique cycle C of length k, and the
number of ways of choosing the elements of C is (nk). Then we have (k − 1)! ways
to pick C and (n − k)! ways to permute the remaining elements. Thus
n
1 n!
L(n) ≥ ∑ k⋅
n! k=⌊n/2⌋+1 k
1
∼n. ”
2
“Marvelous!” said Professor Blakeley with all sincerity. “In fact, one can show
that lim L(n)/n indeed exists. Let us call it c. Can anyone√guess what it is?”
Various guesses were given, such as log 2 and 12 (−1 + 5). Professor Blakeley
was disappointed. “No one in my class last summer could guess it either. It looks
like I will have to give you a clue, namely, numerically we have
c = 0.62432998854355087099293638310 . . . .”
Alas, no student was able to recognize this number, so Professor Blakeley said,
“Analysis of data is a basic tool for solving problems. Try to develop this important
skill! It looks like I will have to tell you the answer, namely,
∞ ∞ e−y
(4.3) c=∫ exp (−x − ∫ dy) dx.”
0 x y
“Just what I was about to say!” said Clayton.
“How could I have missed it?” added Emiliano.
Professor Blakeley said, “This result was proved in 1966 by Stuart Lloyd and
Larry Shepp. In fact, they generalized it to . . . .”
At this moment an unexpected visitor entered the room. It was a stately male
cat, rather large with short, mostly black hair and a black nose, but with a number
of prominent white patches. The cat walked to the front of the desks, turned around
so it was facing the board, and sat down.
 4. A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 37

“It looks like he wants to learn some mathematics,” said Professor Blakeley.
“Let’s test his knowledge.”
He knelt down near the cat and said to it, “If 7 + 5 = 12, then stay where you
are. If 7 + 5 = 13, then walk over to me.”
The cat stayed put.
“Wow!” said Professor Blakeley. “Let’s try some calculus. If the derivative of
x3 is 3x2 , then stay where you are. If it’s 14 x4 , then walk over to me.”
Again the cat did not budge.
Sandra walked up to the front of the room and said, “Let’s try a real challenge.
If there are two groups of order six, then walk over to me. If there are more than
two, then stay where you are.”
The cat stayed where he was. The students were disappointed. “I guess abstract
algebra is too much to expect,” said Sandra.
“Now just a minute!” said Professor Blakeley. “I believe our visitor is correct. I
am surprised that none of you is familiar with algebra. There are actually infinitely
many groups of order six. Sandra did not say ‘up to isomorphism.’ ”
Was the cat really as literal-minded as Professor Blakeley? Sandra decided to
try again. She turned to the cat and said, “If there are exactly two isomorphism
classes of groups of order six, then walk over to me. If there are more than two,
then stay where you are.”
To everyone’s amazement, the cat stood up, walked over to Sandra, rubbed his
cheeks against her leg, and began purring. Sandra gave it a few pats.
Professor Blakeley said, “Holy cow, this cat seems to be smarter than Cayley!
Arthur Cayley was the founder of abstract group theory. In one of his papers
he wrote that there were three 6-element groups (up to isomorphism) because he
counted Z/6Z and (Z/2Z) × (Z/3Z) as different groups.”
By now everyone was in front of the room admiring the mysterious visitor.
Finally Patrick said, “Okay, time for a real test! If there are infinitely many pairs
of prime numbers that differ by two, then stay where you are. Otherwise walk over
to me.”
The cat stayed where it was for a short while and then stood up and began
walking in circles while meowing piteously. His tail was swishing back and forth, and
his ears were turned back. Finally he ran out of the room and quickly disappeared
from sight.
“Gee,” said Patrick, “I guess he couldn’t solve the Twin Prime Conjecture.”
“What do you expect?” said Professor Blakeley. “After all he’s only a cat.”
 CHAPTER 5

Set Theory

PROBLEM LIST

Uncountably many subsets of Z forming a chain 40

Uncountably many subsets of Z whose pairwise intersections are finite 40
Goodstein’s total b-ary expansion procedure 40
Sylver coinage 43
Can R3 be partitioned into unit circles? 43
Chromatic number of a graph on R 44
Infinitely many prisoners with red or blue hats 45
Point mass escaping to infinity 46
Billiard ball escaping the table 46

39
40 5. SET THEORY

“All right!” said Professor Blakeley at the start of the next class. “Today we
are going to have some fun with sets! Let’s start with the existence or nonexistence
of certain sets. The first problem is quite well known, so only raise your hand if
you solve it and haven’t seen it before.
“Does there exist an uncountable collection S of distinct subsets Sα of Z (where
α belongs to some uncountable index set I) which form a chain, that is, if Sα , Sβ ∈ S,
then either Sα ⊆ Sβ or Sβ ⊆ Sα ?”
Half the students had not seen this question before. At first glance the answer
should be negative, since we would need uncountably many different elements to
account for the (infinitesimal) “steps” in the chain of subsets. Since a positive
answer seemed very counterintuitive, the students unfamiliar with the problem
deduced that on psychological grounds such a subset S does exist.
Professor Blakeley decided to help out with a hint. “Note that the integers and
rationals have the same cardinality.”
Soon Sandra saw the light and raised her hand. “The integers and rationals are
both countable, so it is equivalent to ask the question for subsets of Q. For every
real number α let Sα = {x ∈ Q ∶ x < α}.”
“Terrific!” said Professor Blakeley. “Once one thinks about rational numbers
rather than integers, the problem becomes much easier.
“Okay, here is another one. Does there exist an uncountable collection S of
distinct subsets Sα of Z such that if α ≠ β, then Sα ∩ Sβ is finite?”
Now only Daniel admitted to having seen the problem. Again it seemed very
counterintuitive that such a collection S could exist. Guided by the previous prob-
lem, however, it wasn’t long before Jung Wook raised his hand.
“We can replace Z by Q as before. For every α ∈ R, let Sα = {x1 , x2 , . . . }, where
x1 , x2 , . . . is a sequence of rational numbers converging to α.”
“Again terrific!” said Professor Blakeley.
“Now for a real change of pace,” Professor Blakeley continued. “Given positive
integers n and b, define the total b-ary expansion Tb (n) (also called the hereditary
base-b notation) as follows. Write n as a sum of powers of b, with no power occurring
more than b − 1 times. (This is just the usual base b expansion of n.) For instance,
if n = 357948 and b = 3, then we get
311 + 311 + 37 + 36 + 36 + 32 .
Now do the same for each exponent, giving
2
+1+1 2
+1+1
33 + 33 + 33+3+1 + 33+3 + 33+3 + 31+1 .
Continue doing the same for every exponent not already a b or 1, until finally only
b’s and 1’s appear. In the present case we get that T3 (357948) is the array
1+1 1+1
+1+1 +1+1
33 + 33 + 33+3+1 + 33+3 + 33+3 + 31+1 .
Now define a sequence a0 , a1 , . . . as follows. Choose a0 to be any positive integer,
and choose a base b0 > 1. To get a1 , write the total b0 -ary expansion Tb0 (a0 − 1) of
a0 − 1, choose a base b1 ≥ b0 , and replace every appearance of b0 in Tb0 (a0 − 1) by
b1 . This gives the total b1 -ary expansion of the next term a1 . To get a2 , write the
total b1 -ary expansion Tb1 (a1 − 1) of a1 − 1, choose any base b2 ≥ b1 , and replace
every appearance of b1 in Tb1 (a1 − 1) by b2 . This gives the total b2 -ary expansion of
the next term a2 . Continue in this way to obtain a3 , a4 , . . . . In other words, given
an and the previously chosen base bn , to get an+1 , write the total bn -ary expansion
 5. SET THEORY 41

Tbn (an − 1) of an − 1, choose a base bn+1 ≥ bn , and replace every appearance of bn in

Tbn (an − 1) by bn+1 . This gives the total bn+1 -ary expansion of the next term an+1 .
Example. Choose a0 = 357948 and b0 = 3 as above. Then
1+1
+1+1 1+1
+1+1
a0 − 1 = 357947 = 33 + 33 + 33+3+1 + 33+3 + 33+3 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 1.
Choose b1 = 10. Then
= 1010 +1+1 + 1010 +1+1 + 1010+10+1 + 1010+10 + 1010+10 + 10 + 10 + 1 + 1
1+1 1+1
a1
= 10102 + 10102 + 1021 + 1020 + 1020 + 10 + 10 + 1 + 1.
Then
1+1 1+1
+1+1 +1+1
a1 − 1 = 1010 + 1010 + 1010+10+1 + 1010+10 + 1010+10 + 10 + 10 + 1.
Choose b2 = 766. Then
1+1 1+1
a2 = 766766 +1+1 + 766766 +1+1 + 766766+766+1 + 766766+766
+766766+766 + 766 + 766 + 1,
etc. Prove that for some n we have an = an+1 = ⋯ = 0.”
This seemed completely counterintuitive to the students. How could we not
force an → ∞ by choosing the bn ’s sufficiently large?
“It would be unfair to have you work on this yourselves,” said Professor Blake-
ley, “since you aren’t really expected to have the necessary background, namely,
the theory of ordinal numbers. Therefore I will explain the solution.
“If you are not already familiar with ordinal numbers, you can think that the
first ordinal number is 0. Once we have constructed an ordinal number x, then
there is always a next ordinal number. We can represent an ordinal number by a
line of dots. Once we have represented x, put a dot to the right of all the other dots
to get the next ordinal. At first you might think that we are simply constructing
the positive integers, but the point is that even after an infinite sequence of steps,
we can still continue. Thus we start with no dots, then one dot (●), then two dots
(●●), etc. After a while we will have a string of infinitely many dots:
●●●●⋯
This ordinal number is denoted ω. It is the smallest limit ordinal, i.e., it doesn’t
have a last element. But we can still continue the process, placing a dot after this
infinite sequence:
● ● ● ● ⋯●
This ordinal is denoted ω + 1, and continuing to place dots gives a second limit
ordinal, denoted 2ω:
● ● ● ● ⋯ ● ● ● ●⋯
You can easily imagine continuing this way to get 3ω, 4ω, etc. Continuing, we will
reach an infinite sequence of infinite sequences, each looking like ω. This ordinal
number is denoted ω 2 . Then add a next dot to get ω 2 + 1, etc. We will eventually
get (though of course not consecutively) ω 2 + ω, ω 2 + 2ω, . . . , 2ω 2 , 3ω 2 , . . . , ω 3 ,
ω 4 , . . . . Finally we reach the limit ordinal that is the limit of the sequence
ω, ω 2 , ω 3 , ω 4 , . . . .
This ordinal is denoted ω ω . You can imagine now the sequence
ω
ω, ω ω , ω ω , . . . .
42 5. SET THEORY

This limit ordinal is denoted 0 . We are on the verge of leaving the realm of intuitive
comprehensibility, but fortunately we won’t be needing any ordinal beyond 0 .
“Every ordinal number preceding 0 can be uniquely written as a finite expres-
sion in terms of 1 and ω using addition and exponentiation, with the terms in each
sum appearing in decreasing order, for example,

7ω+1
+ω 3 +2ω 2 +1
ωω + ω 3ω+5 + 2ω + 8.

I should point out that in standard (Zermelo-Fraenkel) set theory, there exist much
larger ordinals. In particular, there is a first uncountable ordinal, but it is impossible
to define by an explicit construction. Anyway, a fundamental property of ordinal
numbers is that any strictly decreasing sequence of ordinal numbers is finite.
“We are now ready to look at total b-ary expansions. Given b and n, construct
an ordinal number f (b, n) by taking the total b-ary expansion T (b, n) of n, replacing
each b by ω, and writing each sum in decreasing order of its terms. When we replace
each appearance of b in T (b, n) with any other integer c ≥ 2, we get the total c-ary
expansion of some (usually enormous) integer N , but we still have f (b, n) = f (c, N ).
It is easy to see that f (c, N − 1) < f (c, N ) (as ordinal numbers). Thus the ordinal
numbers Tb1 (a1 − 1), Tb2 (a2 − 1), Tb3 (a3 − 1), . . . are strictly decreasing. Since
every strictly decreasing sequence of ordinal numbers is finite, the procedure must
terminate! This amazing result was proved by Reuben Goodstein in 1944.”
After waiting a little for the proof to sink in, Professor Blakeley continued, “Is
everyone familiar with the Peano postulates? They are a simple set of axioms for
the positive integers. Logicians are interested in the precise power of these axioms,
i.e., what theorems can and cannot be proved with them. Goodstein’s theorem is
the first result historically that can be stated within the Peano axioms, cannot be
proved with these axioms, but can be proved using the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms.
“The question arises as to how long it takes to obtain 0 using our procedure.”
“What do you mean, how long? You can’t give any bound in advance,” said
Daniel.
“Good question! Given n and b, we cannot give in advance an upper bound on
the number of steps to termination. The idea is to compare the procedure with the
following one: given an ordinal number x, we successively choose smaller ordinals
until reaching 0. How long can this procedure Px last? If x = n, a finite ordinal,
then we can say that the procedure lasts at most n steps. What if we choose ω?
We cannot give a bound on the number of steps, but we can say that after one step,
then we can give a bound on the number of remaining steps. Similarly if x = ω + n,
then after n + 1 steps we can give a bound on the number of steps to terminate.
“What about x = 2ω + n? Now we can say that after n + 1 steps, we can give a
bound k on the number of steps until we can give a bound j on the number of steps
to terminate, etc. You get the idea, although this kind of description becomes very
cumbersome, that it does give a description of how long the entire procedure takes
to terminate.
“Now we can describe the length of the original procedure T by asking for
what ordinal number x is T ‘comparable’ to Px , that is, has the same stopping
time description as Px . All this can be made completely rigorous. It will come as
no surprise that T is comparable to P0 , so the procedure can last a really long
time.
 5. SET THEORY 43

“It can be interesting to determine the ordinal stopping time of various games
and procedures that must terminate in finitely many moves or steps. For a game
like chess (which we can make of finite length by requiring that no position may be
repeated twice), the stopping time is just a finite ordinal.
There is a simple game invented by John Conway that has a more interesting
stopping time. It is called Sylver Coinage for J. J. Sylvester, who proved a theorem
equivalent to saying that the game always ends in finitely many moves. There
are two players Alice and Bob. They each take turns choosing positive integers.
No player may choose an integer that is a sum, allowing repetitions, of previously
chosen integers. Whoever chooses 1 loses. For instance, if Alice goes first and
chooses 2, then Bob can choose 3, and Alice loses, since every integer n ≥ 2 can be
written in the form n = 2a + 3b, where a, b are nonnegative integers. Sylver Coinage
is a quite subtle game and not well understood. For instance, it is unknown who
wins if the first move is 16. But the point I want to make here is that it can last a
long time, since its length is known to be comparable to Pω2 . As a hint for proving
this, consider for each state of the game the pair (d, m), where d is the greatest
common divisor of all numbers that can no longer be chosen, and m is the number
of multiples of d that have not yet been chosen. First note that m is finite by some
elementary number theory.
“Let’s take a five-minute break. You can have some fun playing Sylver Coinage.”
Five minutes was hardly enough time to develop even the slightest feeling for
how to play the game, but it was adequate for quenching thirst and the inverse pro-
cess. Professor Blakeley noticed Emiliano poring over a book. The Professor walked
up to Emiliano and saw that the book was entitled Enumerative Combinatorics,
vol. 1, and Emiliano was looking at a chapter on rational generating functions.
“That book has some interesting material,” Professor Blakeley said, “but the au-
thor doesn’t know how to write. You shouldn’t read anything written by him.”
Emiliano nodded politely, but he did not desist from reading the book.
After the break Professor Blakeley was as enthusiastic as ever. “I hope all
of you are now expert Sylver Coinage players. Let’s look at a geometric problem
where set theory is unexpectedly involved. Later1 we will look at some geometry
problems that are more traditional. Okay, the question is: can R3 be partitioned
into unit circles? In other words, is R3 a disjoint union of circles of radius one?”
Given that set theory is unexpectedly involved, the students were not sanguine
about finding an explicit partitioning. However, they did not see how to use set
theory to show that such a partitioning existed.
Professor Blakeley interrupted these musings by saying, “I will explain how it’s
done. First let me review the concept of well-ordering. A well-ordering of a set S
is a total ordering < of S (so that if x, y ∈ S and x ≠ y, then either x < y or y < x,
but not both), so that every subset of S has a least element in the ordering. Thus
the usual ordering of N is a well-ordering, but the usual ordering of the nonnegative
real numbers isn’t, since for example the positive real numbers don’t have a least
element. It is a simple consequence of the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms plus the Axiom
of Choice, which I will assume, that every set can be well-ordered. Any ordinal
number (considered informally as a sequence of dots I defined earlier, where one
dot is less than another if it is to the left) is well-ordered, and conversely every
well-ordered set is isomorphic, as a totally ordered set, to a unique ordinal.
1
Chapter 13
44 5. SET THEORY

“Let φ be the least ordinal whose cardinality is that of the continuum (the
cardinality of R or R3 ). Such an ordinal exists since every set can be well-ordered
and every (nonempty) set of ordinals has a least element. Let α ↦ xα be any
bijection between ordinals α < φ and elements xα of R3 . Thus R3 = {xα ∶ α < φ}.
For each xα I will define a unit circle Cα containing xα such that the distinct circles
Cα form a partition of R3 .
“The definition of Cα is by transfinite induction. That is, I will define Cα after
defining Cβ for all β < α. Namely, if xα lies on a circle Cβ with β < α, then let
Cα = Cβ . Otherwise let Cα be any unit circle containing xα and disjoint from all Cβ
for β < α. We need only show that such a circle Cα exists, since once we complete
the transfinite induction every xα ∈ R3 will be contained in one of the circles Cα .
“Each circle Cβ with β < α lies on a plane Pβ . The number of these planes has
cardinality less than the continuum since α < φ. Because there are a continuum
number of planes passing through xα , we can choose such a plane P that contains
no Cβ for β < α. There are a continuum number of unit circles containing xα and
lying in the plane P . Since each Cβ intersects P in at most two points, there are
less than a continuum number of points of P intersecting some Cβ , where β < α.
Hence some unit circle through xα lies in P and is disjoint from all Cβ , completing
the proof.”
A neat proof !, thought the students. Somehow it seemed like cheating to invoke
set theory in such a way.
“Let’s move on to another aspect of set theory,” said the Professor, “one that
gives a counterintuitive result. Are you all familiar with the chromatic number of
a graph?”
No one indicated otherwise, but as a reminder Professor Blakeley explained,
“Let G be a graph with vertex set V and edge set E. We can assume G is simple,
that is, each edge is incident to two distinct vertices, and no two edges are incident
to the same two vertices. The chromatic number χ(G) is the smallest number n
(which may be an infinite cardinal number if V is infinite) for which there is a
‘coloring’ f ∶ V → S, where S is a set of cardinality n, such that adjacent vertices
get different values (colors). For instance, the famous four-color theorem says that
if G is a finite planar graph, then χ(G) ≤ 4.
“Now consider the following
√ graph G. √Its vertex set is R. Two vertices u and
v are adjacent if u − v + 2 ∈ Q or u − v − 2 ∈ Q. What is the chromatic number
χ(G)?”
After getting no quick response, Professor Blakeley gave a hint: “What can
you say about the length of cycles in G?”
He noticed that Sam was looking at him expectantly, so Professor Blakeley
asked Sam if he had an idea.
Sam√replied, “If we walk k steps from a vertex u, then we’ll be at a vertex
u + r + a 2, where r ∈ Q and a is an integer with the same parity as k. Hence all
cycle lengths are even, so the graph is bipartite, i.e., χ(G) = 2.”
“Very good, but how did you conclude that G is bipartite, i.e., the vertex set
is a disjoint union V = V1 ⊍ V2 , and every edge goes between V1 and V2 ?”
“It’s a standard theorem in graph theory that a graph is bipartite if and only
if all its cycles have even length.”
“How do you prove the ‘if’ statement, which is what we need here.”
 5. SET THEORY 45

Sam thought for a few seconds and said, “Choose a vertex v in each connected
component and color it red. If there is a path of even length from v to another
vertex u, then color u red. Otherwise color u blue. The even length cycles guarantee
that this procedure gives a well-defined 2-coloring.”
“Hmm. . . . Is there a snag in that argument?”
At first it sounded completely ironclad to the students, but Clayton was the
first to wonder what it had to do with set theory, after which the light quickly
dawned. “Perhaps we need the Axiom of Choice in order to pick a vertex in each
component to color red.”
“Yes,” said Professor Blakeley, “we certainly seemed to use the Axiom of
Choice. Is there any way around it?”
Surely there must be a way to avoid the Axiom of Choice, thought many of
the students. One could try to define a canonical vertex in each component, such
as the least positive vertex, though clearly that particular idea would not work. In
fact, nothing seemed to work. Perhaps the Axiom of Choice was essential, though
they did not know how to prove such a result.
“I am not so surprised that you don’t see how to avoid the Axiom of Choice,”
said Professor Blakeley. “In fact, let us assume only the Zermelo-Fraenkel (ZF)
axioms, together with the Axiom of Choice for countable sets, and the axiom that
all subsets of R are measurable. It is known that these axioms are consistent with
ZF alone. Alexander Soifer then showed that χ(G) is neither finite nor countably
infinite! However, it is unknown whether χ(G) has the cardinality c of the contin-
uum, i.e., of the real numbers, or equivalently for those who know a little set theory,
cardinality 2ℵ0 . Of course if the Continuum Hypothesis is true, then c = 2ℵ0 , so
then we would have χ(G) = c (since the number of vertices of G is c, so c is an
upper bound). You probably know the famous result of Paul Cohen that both the
truth and falsity of the Continuum Hypothesis are consistent with ZF.”
This was a lot to absorb for students with no background in set theory, but
Professor Blakeley continued relentlessly. “Let’s look at another situation where
the Axiom of Choice plays a decisive role. This problem belongs to the genre ‘be-
leaguered prisoners.’ We have a rather large prison with infinitely many prisoners
numbered 1, 2, . . . . Each prisoner knows the numbers of all the prisoners. Each
prisoner receives a red hat or blue hat, but they are unable to see the color of
their hat. However, all the prisoners get to see the colors of everyone else’s hat.
The evil prison staff then asks each prisoner individually and privately what is the
color of their hat. All the prisoners are then executed unless only finitely many
guess incorrectly. The prisoners are allowed to communicate before the procedure
begins but not after they see the hats of their fellow prisoners. We assume that
the prisoners can instantaneously process all the information they receive. What is
their best strategy?”
It was a big clue that the Axiom of Choice was involved, and it wasn’t long
before Daniel and Patrick had their hands in the air. It was also clear that Sam had
(or at least thought that he had) a solution. Professor Blakeley pointed to Patrick.
“Put an equivalence relation ∼ on all infinite sequences α = a1 a2 ⋯ of R (red)
and B (blue) by saying that α ∼ β if α and β differ in only finitely many terms.
For each equivalence class E, the prisoners choose a representative αE ∈ E. This
is where the Axiom of Choice comes in. If prisoner i sees color aj on prisoner j,
then prisoner i chooses the representative αE = b1 b2 ⋯ of the class E containing the
46 5. SET THEORY

sequence α = a1 a2 ⋯. The term ai , which prisoner i does not know, is irrelevant.

Prisoner i then guesses the color bi for his or her own hat. Clearly this works.”
“Well done!” said Professor Blakeley. “Yes, the Axiom of Choice certainly
comes in handy. Also the ability to remember and process an infinite amount of
information. Later2 we will consider some more problems involving beleagured
prisoners.
“While we are on the topic of infinitely many people, let’s consider the Hilbert
Hotel, which I’m sure most of you have seen. This hotel has infinitely many rooms
numbered 1, 2, 3, . . . . At first infinitely many guests G1 , G2 , . . . arrive and line up
to check in.
“The clerk spends one minute to put guest G1 in room 1, then 12 minute to
put G2 in room 2, then 14 minute to put G3 in room 3, etc., so after two minutes
all the guests have been accommodated, and the hotel is full. Now another infinite
line H1 , H2 , . . . of guests arrive. The clever clerk moves each Gi to room 2i and
then puts each Hi in room 2i − 1. Again all the guests are accommodated. More
complicated scenarios are possible, which are useful for explaining the paradoxical
nature of infinity to neophytes.
“But suppose that the clerk adopts a different strategy. As the first guests
G1 , G2 , . . . arrive, the clerk first places G1 in room 1. When G2 arrives, he moves
G1 to room 2 and places G2 in room 1. Continuing in this manner, when a new
guest arrives he moves each guest already accommodated to the next higher room,
and then places the new guest in the vacant room 1. Soon all the new guests have
checked in, and the clerk is very pleased at his accomplishment. Then he notices
to his horror that every room is empty! All the guests have mysteriously vanished!
“It is also interesting to note that according to classical Newtonian physics, the
above scenario is actually physically possible! To strip the argument down to its
essentials, suppose that an object moves in a straight line in such a way that at
time t its distance (or the distance of its center of mass) from some fixed point is
1/(1 − t). Where will it be at time t = 1? Although an infinite amount of energy
is needed, the universe is infinite in extent, so this energy can be obtained without
introducing any singularities. In fact, if you allow point masses, then there is an
initial configuration of five point masses in R3 such that if they follow the rules of
Newtonian physics, one of the masses will escape to infinity in a finite amount of
time!”
After a short discussion of this surprising fact Professor Blakeley continued,
“This talk about Newtonian physics reminds me of a startling result concerning
mathematical billiards. Suppose X is a compact convex subset of R2 whose
boundary ∂X is continuously differentiable. Thus X has a tangent line at every
point of ∂X, and the slope of this line varies continuously as we move along ∂X.
In particular, we can play billiards on X, where our billiard ball B is just a point.
We start with B at some point inside X and let B move in a straight line in some
direction. When it reaches a point p on the boundary, it bounces back so that the
angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection (with respect to the tangent line at
p).
“The startling result is that there exists such a set X and initial motion of B
such that B eventually escapes from the set X!”

2
Chapter 14
 5. SET THEORY 47

Naturally the students wondered what Professor Blakeley was talking about.
It clearly made no sense that the ball could leave the set X.
“Perhaps I am not being entirely accurate about the ball escaping from X,”
said the Professor, “but that is a somewhat whimsical interpretation by Benjamin
Halpern of a curious situation. He gives an example where the ball bounces closer
and closer to a point p on ∂X, and the direction in which B moves approaches the
direction of the tangent line at p. After infinitely many steps but in finite time
(assuming that the speed of the ball is constant) the ball reaches p, moving in the
tangent direction.
“What happens next? Strictly speaking, the motion of the ball becomes un-
defined. However, Halpern suggests that after reaching p it escapes X along the
tangent line at p. Another possible interpretation is that the ball will stay on the
boundary, circling forever around it. Very strange!”
With these deep philosophical considerations the morning session came to an
end.
 CHAPTER 6

Two Triangles

PROBLEM LIST

Binomial coefficient identities 50

Sum of entries ⟨ nk ⟩ in row n of Stern’s triangle 52
Largest entry in row n of Stern’s triangle 52
Generating function Un (x) for entries in row n of Stern’s triangle 53
Alternating sum of entries in row n of Stern’s triangle 53
∑k ω k ⟨ k ⟩, where ω = e2πi/3
n
54
⟨ 0 ⟩ + ⟨ 1 ⟩ − ⟨ n2 ⟩ + ⟨ n3 ⟩ + ⟨ n4 ⟩ − ⟨ n5 ⟩ + . . .
n n
54
2
∑k ⟨ k ⟩
n
54
n 3
∑k ⟨ k ⟩ 56
3
The generating function for ∑i (ni) is not algebraic 56
Ratios bi /bi+1 of terms in Stern’s diatomic sequence 57
Sum of elements in row n of the Calkin-Wilf tree 58
2m −1 r
The sum ∑i=1 bi 58
Rationality of generating function for congruence condition on row n
of Stern’s triangle 59
Number of pairs (a, b) generating Z/mZ 60
Fraction of consecutive entries in row n of Stern’s triangle satisfying
a congruence condition 61
Fraction of entries in row n of Stern’s triangle satisfying a congruence
condition 61
Fraction of terms in Stern’s diatomic sequence satisfying a congruence
condition 62
An identity involving φ(m) and ψ(m) 62
The equation ∣f (n)∣ = ∑d∣n f (d) 62
Some mysterious observations on Gm,a (x) 62

49
50 6. TWO TRIANGLES

When Professor Blakeley walked into class the next day, he seemed very excited.
“You all know about Pascal’s arithmetic triangle P , or just Pascal’s triangle or
the arithmetic triangle or less commonly Pingal’s Meruprastar, after the Indian
mathematician Archarya Pingala from the 3rd/2nd century BC,” he said as he
wrote part of this well-known array on the board.

1
1 1
1 2 1
1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1
1 5 10 10 5 1
⋮

“The kth entry in row n, beginning with row 0 and calling the leftmost entry in
each row the 0th entry, is denoted (nk) and of course is called a binomial coefficient.
If k > n, then (nk) = 0. The defining recurrence of the arithmetic triangle is

n n−1 n−1
( )=( )+( ).
k k−1 k

By the way, the number of digits needed to write the nth row in decimal notation
is about (n2 log n)/(2 log 10), so if each digit is written the same size, then the
array is not really a triangle. We get a triangle if each entry (nk) takes up the same
amount of space, but then the entries are going to be very hard to read for large n.
Anyway, the arithmetic triangle has a lot of interesting properties, such as the row
sums ∑nk=0 (nk) being equal to 2n and certain diagonal sums ∑nk=0 (n−k k
) being equal
to the Fibonacci number Fn+1 . There are a myriad of further identities like

k
a b a+b
∑ ( )( )=( ),
i=0 i k − i k

which includes as a special case, using the symmetry (nk) = (n−k

n
),

n
n 2 2n
∑ ( ) = ( ).
i=0 i n

We can extend the definition to (αk) for any complex number (or indeterminate) α
and k ∈ N by

α α(α − 1)⋯(α − k + 1)
(6.1) ( )= .
k k!
 6. TWO TRIANGLES 51

Some other identities are

n
n i
∑ ( )x = (1 + x)n ,
i=0 i
n
i n
3
(3n)!
∑(−1) ( ) = (−1)n ,
i=0 i n!3
n
α+k α+n+1
∑( ) = ( ),
i=0 k n
n
2i 2(n − i)
(6.2) ∑ ( )( ) = 4n ,
i=0 i n−i
min(a,b)
α+β+i β α α+a β +b
∑ ( )( )( ) = ( )( ).
i=0 i a−i b−i b a
“Binomial coefficients also have a lot of congruence and divisibility properties,
as we saw when we discussed Lucas’s theorem and Kummer’s theorem.1
“I am pleased to announce that I have found an amazing analogue of Pascal’s
triangle, with even more identities and congruences! I call it the multiplicative
triangle or Blakeley’s triangle, denoted B. It is the multiplicative analogue of
Pascal’s arithmetic triangle. The initial conditions are that every row begins and
ends with a one, just like Pascal’s triangle. Using the same indexing conventions
as before, denote the kth entry in row n of B by GGnkGG. Then we have the defining
recurrence
GnG Gn − 1G Gn − 1G
G G=G G G G
Gk G Gk − 1G ⋅ G k G, 0 < k < n.
G G G G G G
Behold the beautiful multiplicative triangle!”
1
1 1
1 1 1
1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1
⋮
The students were temporarily too stunned to reply, so Professor Blakeley
continued, “I have just begun to unravel the mysteries of this triangle. For instance,
it is straightforward to show that
n G G
n
∑ GG GG = n + 1,
G
k=0 k G
n G G2
n
∑ GG GG = n + 1.
k=0 G k G

Amazingly enough, I can show that

n G G3
n
∑ GG GG = n + 1,
G
k=0 k G

1
Chapter 3
52 6. TWO TRIANGLES

which has no analogue for Pascal’s triangle. There is also the multiplicative Lucas’s
theorem and Kummer’s theorem, namely, for any prime p and 0 ≤ k ≤ n we have
GnG ≡ 1 (mod p), and the exponent of the largest power of p dividing GnG is 0.”
Gk G Gk G
Clayton’s hand shot up. “I think I can handle the sum ∑nk=0 GGnkGG ,” he said.
4

“Terrific!” responded Professor Blakeley. “The multiplicative triangle should

be a fecund area for further research. Maybe some of you can write your Ph.D.
thesis on this topic. I’ll let you mull over this for a bit, while we consider another
interesting ‘Pascal-like’ triangle.
“Let’s consider the following analogue. We have the same initial conditions as
before, that is, row 0 consists of one 1, and in each subsequent row we place a 1 at
the beginning and end. We add two adjacent numbers just as in Pascal’s triangle,
but we also take each number in row n and place a copy directly below it in row
n + 1. It would take me too long to write down the entire array, but here are the
first few rows.”
1
1 1 1
1 1 2 1 2 1 1
1 1 2 1 3 2 3 1 3 2 3 1 2 1 1
⋮

“So, how many entries in row n?” A number of students cried out, “2n+1 − 1.”
“Great!,” said Professor Blakeley. “This array is a lot fatter than Pascal’s
triangle. I will call it Stern’s triangle and denote it by S. Can anyone see a
problem with this terminology?”
“Who is Stern?” ventured a couple of students.
“I will get to that later,” replied Professor Blakeley, “but that is not the problem
with the terminology.”
After seeing only blank faces Professor Blakeley continued, “Even if we adjust
the font size of each entry so all entries take up the same amount of space, the two
boundary edges are not straight lines as in Pascal’s triangle, but rather exponential
curves. Nevertheless, I hope I can be forgiven for referring to S as a ‘triangle.’ Of
course we could scale the entry sizes so we do get a triangle, but it would be hard
to read the microscopic size numbers after a few rows.
“Let’s get back to real mathematics. What’s the sum of the elements in row
n?”
“3n ,” a few students replied.
“Why is that?”
The question was so easy that Jung Wook responded without first raising his
hand, “Each entry contributes three times to the next row, once to the left, once
to the right, and once directly below.”
“A very clear and succinct explanation!” said Professor Blakeley. “And what
is the largest entry in row n? If you start computing these numbers you get
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, . . . , so there is an obvious conjecture.”
Emiliano was chosen to answer. “It’s easy to prove by induction that you
get Fibonacci numbers. Let g(n) be the maximum entry in row n. Any two
consecutive entries include one number brought down from the previous row, so
g(n + 1) ≤ g(n) + g(n − 1). If g(n − 1) and g(n) do appear consecutively in row n,
then g(n − 1) + g(n) and g(n) appear consecutively in row n + 1. Since g(0) and
 6. TWO TRIANGLES 53

g(1) are consecutive in row 1, we have by induction that g(n + 1) = g(n) + g(n − 1),
and it’s easy to check initial conditions.”
“Well done!” said Professor Blakeley. “Let’s try something a little more serious.
What is the ‘Stern analogue’ of the binomial theorem? To be precise, let ⟨ nk ⟩ be
the kth entry in row n, beginning with the 0th entry, so ⟨ n0 ⟩ = ⟨ 2n+1
n
−2
⟩ = 1. What
can we say about the polynomial
n+1
2 −2
n
Un (x) = ∑ ⟨ ⟩xk ?”
k=0 k

Patrick was furiously computing and quickly announced that he had a con-
jecture. Professor Blakeley suggested trying to find a formula for Un (x) directly,
without first making a conjecture. Soon the students saw the way to do this. The
numbers in row n + 1 brought straight down from row n contribute xUn (x2 ) to
Un+1 (x). The numbers brought down to the left contribute Un (x2 ), and to the
right contribute x2 Un (x2 ). Hence

Un+1 (x) = (1 + x + x2 )Un (x2 ).

Using the initial condition U0 (x) = 1, we obtain

n−1 i i
Un (x) = ∏ (1 + x2 + x2⋅2 ) , n ≥ 1.
i=0

Professor Blakeley was quite pleased. “This is a good analogue of the binomial
theorem, because it is a nice product formula. I should point out that it is more
traditional to use a similar array that begins with two 1’s in the first row. It looks
as follows,” he said while writing

1 1
1 2 1
1 3 2 3 1
.
1 4 3 5 2 5 3 4 1
1 5 4 7 3 8 5 7 2 7 5 8 3 7 4 5 1
⋮

“This array is called Stern’s diatomic array. It is essentially equivalent to

Stern’s triangle S I defined previously, but I personally prefer S because of its
more elegant properties such as the analogue of the binomial theorem.
“Who can tell me the alternating sum ∑k (−1)k ⟨ nk ⟩ of the entries in row n of
S?”
Hands shot up quickly, and Daniel yelled, “3n−1 !”
“And why is that? Daniel, why don’t you explain?”
Daniel said, “Just let x = −1 in the product formula for Un (x).”
“Yes, this is completely analogous to showing that ∑k (−1)k (nk) = 0 by setting
x = −1 in (x + 1)n = ∑k (nk)xk . However, I am sad to say that 3n−1 is not the correct
answer.”
The students were mystified. They were not yet sufficiently familiar with Pro-
fessor Blakeley’s inclination toward literal-mindedness.
54 6. TWO TRIANGLES

“You don’t see it? I am shocked! The formula 3n−1 fails when n = 0,” he said.
“Let’s see if we can do a better job with
k n
∑ ω ⟨ ⟩,
k k
where ω = e2πi/3 , a primitive cube root of unity.”
Again many hands were quickly raised, and Professor Blakeley asked Sandra
to explain.
She had learned her lesson. “It’s 0 if n ≥ 1 and 1 if n = 0, by letting x = ω
in Un (x) for n ≥ 1 and using 1 + ω + ω 2 = 0. We also need that 2i and 2 ⋅ 2i are
incongruent and nonzero modulo 3.”
“Excellent, excellent!” said Professor Blakeley. “Note the same is true if we
k
replace ω with e2πi/(3⋅2 ) , provided n > k. What about the sum
n n n n n n
⟨ ⟩ + ⟨ ⟩ − ⟨ ⟩ + ⟨ ⟩ + ⟨ ⟩ − ⟨ ⟩ + ....
0 1 2 3 4 5
The signs go + + − + + − + + − + + − ⋯.”
Fumei was the first to raise her hand. “Any sequence a0 , a1 , . . . that is periodic
of period three is a linear combination of the sequences bn = 1, bn = ω n , and bn = ω 2n .
We just have to figure this out for 1, 1, −1, 1, 1, −1, . . . .”
“That’s the basic idea,” said Professor Blakeley. “How about some details?”
Patrick was chosen to come to the board. “We need to solve the linear equations
a+b+c = 1,
a + ωb + ω 2 c = 1,
a + ω 2 b + ωc = −1.
Then the answer will be
aUn (1) + bUn (ω) + cUn (ω 2 ).
Wait a second, we have Un (1) = 3n and Un (ω) = Un (ω 2 ) = 0 (for n > 0 of course).
So the answer is a3n .”
“And what’s a?” asked Professor Blakeley.
“Just add the equations,” said Fumei. “We get a = 1/3.”
“Exactly! Curiously we get the answer 3n−1 , the same as for the alternating
sum ⟨ n0 ⟩ − ⟨ n1 ⟩ + ⟨ n2 ⟩ − ⟨ n3 ⟩ + . . . . I’m sure you can think of some generalizations, so
let’s switch gears—can anything interesting be said about
n 2
u2 (n) ∶= ∑ ⟨ ⟩ ?”
i i
2
It was clear that the elegant proof by generating functions that ∑i (ni) = (2n
n
)
was not going to extend, since Um (x)Un (x) ≠ Um+n (x). The best that the students
could come up with is that u2 (n) is the middle coefficient of Un (x)2 , but they did
not see what to do with this. Meanwhile several students computed the values
1, 3, 13, 59, 269, 1227, 5597, 25531, . . . and looked them up in OEIS. Amazingly this
sequence appeared with a simple rule, but with no reference to Un (x) or to the
name Stern, so they now had the conjecture
(6.3) u2 (n + 1) = 5u2 (n) − 2u2 (n − 1),
with the initial conditions u2 (0) = 1 and u2 (1) = 3.
 6. TWO TRIANGLES 55

“A very elegant conjecture!” said Professor Blakeley. “Let’s take a little break
and see if you can come up with a proof. Feel free to collaborate.”
After only five or so minutes, Daniel and Jung Wook said that they think they
had it. Jung Wook explained, “We need to look at an auxiliary function
n n
u1,1 (n) = ∑ ⟨ ⟩⟨ ⟩.
i i i+1
Now each element in row n is either equal to the element above it or to the sum of
the two neighboring elements above it, so
n 2 n n 2
u2 (n + 1) = ∑ ⟨ ⟩ + ∑ (⟨ ⟩ + ⟨ ⟩)
i i i i i+1
(6.4) = 3u2 (n) + 2u1,1 (n).
Similarly,
n n n n n n
u1,1 (n) = ∑ ⟨ ⟩ (⟨ ⟩ + ⟨ ⟩) + ∑ (⟨ ⟩ + ⟨ ⟩) ⟨ ⟩
i i i i+1 i i i+1 i+1
(6.5) = 2u2 (n) + 2u1,1 (n).
We can restate the recurrences (6.4) and (6.5) in the matrix form
u2 (n + 1) 3 2 u (n)
[ ]=[ ][ 2 ],
u1,1 (n + 1) 2 2 u1,1 (n)
so
n
u2 (n + 1) 3 2 u (1)
[ ]=[ ] [ 2 ].
u1,1 (n + 1) 2 2 u1,1 (1)
3 2
The minimum polynomial of the matrix A = [ ] is x2 −5x+2, so A2 −5A+2I = 0.
2 2
Therefore An−1 (A2 − 5A + 2I) = 0. Apply this to the vector
u2 (1) 3
[ ] = [ ],
u1,1 (1) 2
and we get the desired recurrence.”
So quick!, thought Professor Blakeley, I took two days to find this argument.
“Fantastic! Note that this result is simpler than the corresponding one for Pascal’s
2
triangle. For Pascal’s triangle we have ∑i (ni) = (2n
n
), and
2n n 1
∑ ( )x = √ ,
n≥0 n 1 − 4x
an algebraic function of x, i.e., it satisfies a nonzero polynomial equation whose
coefficients are polynomials in x. Here the equation is (1 − 4x)y 2 − 1 = 0. On the
other hand, since u2 (n) satisfies a linear recurrence with constant coefficients, the
generating function will be rational (a quotient of two polynomials), a special case
of algebraic functions which is much simpler and more tractable. More specifically,
we have
1 − 2x
∑ u2 (n)x =
n
.
n≥0 1 − 5x + 2x2
56 6. TWO TRIANGLES

I am assuming you know the theory of such recurrences and how to deduce, for
instance, that
√ √ n √ √ n
1 17 5 + 17 1 17 5 − 17
u2 (n) = ( + )( ) +( − )( ) .
2 34 2 2 34 2
√ n
Thus u2 (n) grows like ( 5+ 2 17 ) = (4.56155 . . . )n , while u1 (n) = ∑k ⟨ nk ⟩ = 3n .
“Now that we understand u2 (n), let’s see if we can do something with
n 3
u3 (n) = ∑ ⟨ ⟩ .”
k k

Now that the students understood the technique, it didn’t take long for them
to come up with a solution. This time one needs the auxiliary functions
n 2 n
u2,1 (n) = ∑ ⟨ ⟩ ⟨ ⟩
k k k+1
and similarly for u1,2 (n). However, because of the symmetry
n n
⟨ ⟩ = ⟨ n+1 ⟩
k 2 −2−k
we have u2,1 (n) = u1,2 (n). It is then easy to check that for n ≥ 1 we have
u3 (n) = 3u3 (n − 1) + 6u2,1 (n − 1),
u2,1 (n) = 2u3 (n − 1) + 4u2,1 (n − 1).
At this point Professor Blakeley asked, “Can someone find a formula in their heads
for u3 (n) when n ≥ 1?”
Professor Blakeley called on Emiliano after several hands went up. “The coef-
ficient matrix has eigenvalues 7 and 0 since its determinant is 0 and its trace is 7,
so u3 (n) = c ⋅ 7n for some constant c. Putting n = 1 gives u3 (n) = 3 ⋅ 7n−1 .”
3
“Great! A remarkably simple formula. There is no counterpart for ∑i (ni) . In
3
fact, one can show that the generating function for ∑i (ni) is not even algebraic (a
3 6
good challenge). For some reason, the coefficient matrix [ ] has determinant
2 4
0, so we drop one degree from the ‘expected.’ That is, the denominator of the
generating function ∑n≥0 u3 (n)xn has degree one, not two. I should also point out
that the formula u3 (n) = 3 ⋅ 7n−1 fails for n = 0, because the minimal polynomial of
3 6
[ ] is x(x − 7), not x − 7.
2 4
r
“I hope it is clear that this method can be applied to ur (n) ∶= ∑k ⟨ nk ⟩ for any
positive integer r. One has to check that we end up with only finitely many linear
recurrences, but this isn’t so difficult. Here are the recurrences we get for r = 4, 5, 6:
u4 (n) = 10u4 (n − 1) + 9u4 (n − 2) − 2u4 (n − 3),
u5 (n) = 14u5 (n − 1) + 47u4 (n − 2),
u6 (n) = 20u6 (n − 1) + 161u6 (n − 2) + 40u6 (n − 3) − 4u6 (n − 4).
It is an interesting project to look at further properties of these recurrences, such
as their length, but I will not discuss this further.
 6. TWO TRIANGLES 57

“But I will say that this phenomenon is much more general and not connected
with the triangle S. As just one random example, let

n−1 i i i
(6.6) Fn (x) = ∏ (1 + 2x3 − x2⋅3 + x3⋅3 ) ,
i=0

and let vr (n) be the sum of the rth powers of the coefficients of Fn (x). Then we
have

v2 (n) = 8v2 (n − 1) − 9v2 (n − 2),

v3 (n) = 15v3 (n − 1) − 59v3 (n − 2) + 183v3 (n − 3),
v4 (n) = 32v4 (n − 1) + 278v4 (n − 2) − 1600v4 (n − 3) − 867v4 (n − 4).

“This is something I will leave you to mull over at your leisure. But now I
would like to discuss a completely unexpected property of Stern’s triangle. For
convenience set ⟨ nk ⟩ = 0 if k > 2n − 2. First note that the rows of the Stern triangle
are stable, that is, for any k ≥ 0 the sequence ⟨ k0 ⟩, ⟨ k1 ⟩, ⟨ k2 ⟩, . . . eventually becomes
constant, say with value bk+1 (rather than bk in order to agree with established
notation). In fact, the (n + 1)st row begins with the first half of the nth row.
Obviously we have
i i
∑ bk+1 x = lim Um (x) = ∏ (1 + x + x ) .
k 2 2⋅2
m→∞
k≥0 i≥0

We are taking the limit coefficientwise. Since for fixed k the coefficient of xk becomes
constant as m → ∞, there is no problem with convergence in taking the limit. Set
b0 = 0. The sequence b0 , b1 , . . . is called Stern’s diatomic series or Stern’s diatomic
sequence (or the Stern-Brocot sequence), after an 1858 paper of Moritz Abraham
Stern. It begins as follows:

0, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 2, 3, 1, 4, 3, 5, 2, 5, 3, 4, 1, 5, 4, 7, 3, 8, 5, 7, 2, 7, 5, 8, . . . .

Its most amazing property is the following: every nonnegative rational number
occurs exactly once as a ratio bi /bi+1 of two consecutive terms, and this fraction is
in lowest terms!”
Was this another of Professor Blakeley’s jokes? There didn’t seem to be any
connection between the hypothesis and the conclusion.
“I know what some of you must be thinking,” said Professor Blakeley, “but
this is really a true theorem. It is certainly one of the most startling results in
mathematics. It can be directly proved by induction using the recurrence b2n = bn
and b2n+1 = bn + bn+1 (essentially equivalent to the definition of Stern’s triangle),
but it is more easily understood by introducing an intermediate object known as
the Calkin-Wilf tree T . This is an infinite binary tree with root labeled by the
fraction 1/1. We then label the other vertices recursively using the following rule:
if a vertex is labeled a/b, then its left child is labeled a/(a + b) and its right child
(a + b)/b. Here are the first few levels.”
58 6. TWO TRIANGLES

1/1

1/2 2/1

1/3 3/2 2/3 3/1

1/4 4/3 3/5 5/2 2/5 5/3 3/4 4/1

“It’s not difficult to prove the following three facts, which immediately imply
the desired result.
● If we read the numerators of the labels of T in the usual reading order,
then we obtain the sequence b1 , b2 , . . . , i.e., the Stern diatomic sequence
except for the first term 0.
● If we read the denominators of the labels of T in the same reading order,
then we obtain the sequence b2 , b3 , . . . .
● Every positive rational number occurs exactly once as a label.
“The Calkin-Wilf tree is named after Neil Calkin and Herbert Wilf, who pub-
lished their paper on this subject in 2000. This is a good example of Stigler’s law of
eponymy which I discussed earlier. The earliest explicit appearance of the Calkin-
Wilf tree seems to be a 1997 paper of Jean Berstel and Aldo de Luca, who called
it the Raney tree. However, similar trees go back to Stern and even to Kepler in
1619.
“Here is a little problem on the Calkin-Wilf tree. What is the sum f (n) of the
elements at height n? Let the top height be 1, so f (1) = 1, f (2) = 12 + 2 = 52 , etc.”
A couple of minutes later Fumei and Clayton raised their hands at about the
same time. Professor Blakeley asked Fumei to explain. She said, “In all rows but
the first, the fractions come in pairs ab and ab . Their children sum to
a a+b b a+b a b
+ + + =3+ + .
a+b b a+b a b a
There are 2n−2 such pairs at height n, so we get
f (n + 1) = f (n) + 3 ⋅ 2n−2 .
This recurrence is easy to solve, but I didn’t do it yet.”
“Good job!” said Professor Blakeley. “Indeed, the solution is f (n) =
1
2
(3 ⋅ 2n−1 − 1).
“There is a simple connection between Stern’s triangle and Stern’s diatomic
sequence. Namely, you can check that row n of Stern’s triangle has the form
u, 1, ur , where u is the sequence consisting of the first 2n −1 term of Stern’s diatomic
sequence, and ur is its reverse. From this observation we obtain
2m −1
1
∑ bi = (ur (m) − 1).
r
i=1 2

“Let’s look at a further aspect of Stern’s triangle, this time number-theoretical.

We discussed earlier Lucas’s theorem and Kummer’s theorem, which gave some
 6. TWO TRIANGLES 59

divisibility properties of (nk). We can ask similar questions for Stern’s triangle. The
behavior seems to be quite different. In particular, for 0 ≤ a < m let
n
gm,a (n) = # {k ∶ 0 ≤ k ≤ 2n+1 − 2, ⟨ ⟩ ≡ a (mod m)} .
k
Set Gm,a (x) = ∑n≥0 gm,a (n)xn . I did some experiments that suggest that Gm,a (x)
is a rational function. For instance, it seems that

2x2
G2,0 (x) = ,
(1 − x)(1 + x)(1 − 2x)
1 + 2x
G2,1 (x) = ,
(1 + x)(1 − 2x)
4x3
G3,0 (x) = ,
(1 − x)(1 − 2x)(1 + x + 2x2 )
1 + x − 4x3 − 4x4
G3,1 (x) = ,
(1 − x)(1 − 2x)(1 + x + 2x2 )
2x2 + 4x4
G3,2 (x) = ,
(1 − x)(1 − 2x)(1 + x + 2x2 )
4x4
G4,0 (x) = ,
(1 − x)(1 + x)(1 − 2x)(1 − x + 2x2 )
1 + x − 2x2 − 4x3
G4,1 (x) = ,
(1 − x)(1 + x)(1 − 2x)
2x2
G4,2 (x) = ,
(1 + x)(1 − 2x)(1 − x + 2x2 )
4x3
G4,3 (x) = ,
(1 − x)(1 + x)(1 − 2x)
4x4
G5,0 (x) = ,
(1 − x)(1 + x)(1 − 2x)(1 − x + 2x2 )
1 − x2 − x4 − 8x5 + 5x6 − 4x7 − 16x8 + 8x9 − 32x10 − 32x11
G5,1 (x) = ,
(1 − x)(1 + x)(1 − 2x)(1 + x2 )(1 − x + 2x2 )(1 − x2 + 4x4 )
2x2 + 8x5 + 2x6 − 4x7 + 12x8 − 16x10
G5,2 (x) = ,
(1 + x)(1 − 2x)(1 + x2 )(1 − x + 2x2 )(1 − x2 + 4x4 )
4x3 + 4x5 + 4x6 + 12x7 − 4x8 + 16x10
G5,3 (x) = ,
(1 + x)(1 − 2x)(1 + x2 )(1 − x + 2x2 )(1 − x2 + 4x4 )
4x4 − 4x5 + 8x6 + 8x7 + 8x8 + 16x10 + 32x11
G5,4 (x) = .
(1 + x)(1 − 2x)(1 + x2 )(1 − x + 2x2 )(1 − x2 + 4x4 )

The cases G2,0 (x) and G2,1 (x) are easy exercises, but the others don’t seem so
easy. Does anyone have an idea about proving rationality?”
Some of the students thought about whether there was some analogue of the
proof that ∑n u2 (n)xn is rational. There one needed to introduce a new function
u1,1 (n). After some thought Daniel ventured, “It seems that we need to look at
the function gm,a,b (n) that counts the number of k for which ⟨ nk ⟩ ≡ a (mod m) and
⟨ k+1
n
⟩ ≡ b (mod m). I’m not sure whether this will be sufficient.”
60 6. TWO TRIANGLES

“You are right on the button! Here is what happens. In Daniel’s definition
of gm,a,b (n), we need to allow the values k = −1 and k = 2n − 2, giving the pairs
(⟨ −1
n
⟩, ⟨ n0 ⟩) = (0, 1) and (⟨ 2nn−2 ⟩, ⟨ 2nn−1 ⟩) = (1, 0), contributing to gm,0,1 (n) and
gm,1,0 (n), respectively. Since ⟨ nk ⟩ and ⟨ k+1 n
⟩ are easily seen to be relatively prime,
we have gm,a,b (n) = 0 unless a, b generate the additive group Z/mZ. In that case
we obtain the recurrences
(6.7) gm,a,b (n + 1) = gm,a,b−a (n) + gm,a−b,b (n),
where a, b generate Z/mZ and the subscripts b − a and a − b are taken modulo m.
Note that if a, b generate Z/mZ, then so do the pairs a, b − a and a − b, b. Thus we
get a system of linear recurrences of the same type as we got for u2 (n) and u3 (n),
so the generating functions
Gm,a,b (x) = ∑ gm,a,b (n)xn
n≥0

are rational. It is then clear that Gm,a (x) is also rational, since Gm,a (x) =
∑b Gm,a,b (x).
“Let’s see if we can glean some further information about gm,a,b . First, how
big is the matrix recurrence we need to solve to compute Gm,a,b ? In other words,
for how many pairs (a, b) ∈ Z/mZ × Z/mZ is it the case that a.b generate Z/mZ (as
an additive group)?”
Several hands went up, and Sandra was selected. “If m is a prime power pk ,
then we want to count pairs (a, b) for which not both a and b are multiples of
p. There are pk−1 multiples of p in Z/pk Z, so the number of generating pairs is
(pk )2 − (pk−1 )2 = p2(k−1) (p2 − 1).”
“Great! And what if m is not a prime power?”
“The Chinese remainder theorem should be applicable, though I would have to
think a bit more.”
“Exactly! It is a simple application of the Chinese remainder theorem which I
leave as an exercise that if f (m) is the number of pairs (a, b) ∈ Z/mZ × Z/mZ for
which a, b generate Z/mZ, then f (m) is multiplicative, i.e., f (m)f (r) = f (mr) if
m and r are relatively prime. It follows that
p2 − 1
f (m) = m2 ∏ 2
.
p∣m p

We can write this another way as follows. The Dedekind psi function is defined by
p+1
ψ(m) = m ∏ .
p∣m p

Recalling that the Euler phi function satisfies

p−1
φ(m) = m ∏ ,
p∣m p

we see that f (m) = ψ(m)φ(m).

“Who can explain the factor 1 − 2x in the denominator of the examples that I
showed you?”
Emiliano was chosen. “The matrix A corresponding to the recurrence (6.7)
has two 1’s in every row, while all other entries are 0. Hence the all 1’s vector
 6. TWO TRIANGLES 61

is an eigenvector with eigenvalue 2, yielding the factor x − 2 in the characteristic

polynomial. This corresponds to a factor 1 − 2x in the denominator of Gm,a,b (x).”
“Good explanation! Conceivably there could be a factor 1−2x in the numerator
which cancels the denominator factor. It seems plausible, however, that the number
gm,a,b (n) of k for which ⟨ nk ⟩ ≡ a (mod m) and ⟨ k+1
n
⟩ ≡ b (mod m) should be, in the
limit as n → ∞, a positive fraction of all the entries of the nth row of Stern’s
triangle. Since there are 2n+1 − 1 entries, this means that
(6.8) gm,a,b (n) ∼ cm,a,b 2n
for some constant cm,a,b > 0. Hence the factor 1 − 2x should appear in the denomi-
nator but not in the numerator.
“Can we make this reasoning more precise?”
Jung Wook was the first to volunteer. “If we divide the matrix A by 2, then
we get the matrix of a finite-state Markov chain. I think we want to compute the
stationary distribution.”
“Fantastic idea!” said Professor Blakeley, once more impressed by the knowl-
edge of the students and how quickly they could access it. “I will explain further
for those of you like Jung Wook who are familiar with Markov chains. It’s easy to
see that every column sum of the matrix A/2 is equal to 1. (We already noticed
this for row sums.) Hence the all 1’s row vector v is a left eigenvector of A/2 with
eigenvalue 1. Now by the theory of Markov chains v/Z gives the stationary dis-
tribution, where Z is the normalizing factor φ(m)ψ(m) so that the entries sum to
1. Since v is the vector of all 1’s, the stationary distribution is just the uniform
distribution on pairs (a, b) which generate Z/mZ. In other words, the constants
cm,a,b of equation (6.8) are given by cm,a,b = 1/φ(m)ψ(m).
“We can also ask for the proportion cm,a of numbers ⟨ nk ⟩, 0 ≤ k ≤ 2n+1 − 2, that
are congruent to a modulo m. Equivalently,
gm,a (n) ∼ cm,a 2n .
It is pretty straightforward to obtain the value of cm,a from the fact that cm,a,b =
1/φ(m)ψ(m), assuming as usual that a, b generate Z/mZ. As an example, the pairs
(a, b) that generate Z/4Z are (1,1), (1,2), (1,3), (1,4), (2,1), (2,3), (3,1), (3,2), (3,3),
(3,4), (4,1), (4,3). Of the 24 numbers in these twelve pairs, the number 2 appears
four times. Hence c6,2 = 244
= 16 . In general, the answer turns out to be
mφ(d)
(6.9) cm,a = ,
dφ(m)ψ(m)
where d = gcd(m, a). For instance, for m = 12 we get
1
(c12,0 , . . . , c12,11 ) = (2, 6, 3, 4, 3, 6, 2, 6, 3, 4, 3, 6).
48
I have put the formula (6.9) for cm,a as a problem on the afternoon’s problem set.
“These results on cm,a,b and cm,a can be carried over directly to Stern’s diatomic
sequence, because as noted before, row n of Stern’s triangle has the form u, 1, ur ,
where u is the sequence consisting of the first 2n − 1 term of Stern’s diatomic
sequence, and ur is its reverse. We obtain the following.
“Let a, b generate Z/mZ. Let
hm,a,b (n) = #{bi ∶ 1 ≤ i ≤ n, bi ≡ a (mod m), bi+1 ≡ b (mod m)}.
62 6. TWO TRIANGLES

Similarly, for any a ∈ Z/mZ let

hm,a (n) = #{bi ∶ 1 ≤ i ≤ n, bi ≡ a (mod m)}.
Then
hm,a,b (n) 1
(6.10) lim = ,
n→∞ n φ(m)ψ(m)
hm,a (n) mφ(d)
(6.11) lim = , where gcd(m, a) = d.
n→∞ n dφ(m)ψ(m)

“Note that given d∣m, the number of integers a ∈ [m] satisfying gcd(m, a) = d
is equal to φ(m/d). Hence from equation (6.11) we obtain the identity
mφ(d)
1 = ∑ φ(m/d) ,
d∣m dφ(m)ψ(m)
or equivalently (after interchanging d and m/d),
(6.12) φ(m)ψ(m) = ∑ dφ(d)φ(m/d).
d∣m

Naturally such an elementary identity cannot be too hard to prove directly. The
most straightforward proof is to use the fact that the functions φ(m), ψ(m), and
m are multiplicative. Moreover, if f (m) and g(m) are multiplicative, then so are
f (m)g(m) and ∑d∣m f (d)g(m/d). It follows that both sides of equation (6.12) are
multiplicative. Hence we need to verify this equation only when m is a prime power
pk , which amounts to showing that
k−1
p2(k−1) (p − 1)(p + 1) = pk−1 (p − 1) + ∑ pi pi−1 (p − 1)pk−i−1 (p − 1) + pk (p − 1)pk−1 ,
i=1

which is straightforward.
“To check your understanding of this proof technique, I have put on today’s
problem set the question of finding the unique function f ∶ P → Q satisfying f (1) = 1
and
∣f (n)∣ = ∑ f (d).
d∣n

Express your answer in terms of the functions ω(m) (the number of distinct prime
divisors of m) and Ω(m) (the total number of prime divisors of m, i.e., Ω(∏ pai i ) =
∑ ai ). For instance, ω(12) = 2 and Ω(12) = 3.
“There are some other observations about the generating functions Gm,a (x)
that are mysterious to me. For instance, why are there factors 1 − x and 1 + x
in lots of denominators? More generally, why do the denominators have so many
factors? Why do some numerators have only one term? In addition to the data I
showed you earlier, the numerators have just one term for G6,0 (x), G6,3 (x), G7,0 (x),
G8,4 (x) (but not G8,0 (x)), G9,0 (x), G10,5 (x) (but not G10,0 (x)), G11,0 (x) (but
not G13,0 (x)), etc. There are also some strange ‘coincidences’, such as G4,0 (x) =
G5,0 (x) and G6,0 (x) = G9,0 (x). Moreover, there is a strong tendency for the highest
few numerator coefficients to be powers of 2, up to sign. In fact, the leading
coefficient in all examples I checked is always a power of 2, up to sign. Some
especially striking examples are the numerators 4x4 + 4x6 + 16x8 of G6,5 (x), 4x6 −
8x7 + 16x8 of G10,0 (x), and 4x6 + 8x7 + 16x8 of G13,0 .
 6. TWO TRIANGLES 63

“Numerous generalizations suggest themselves. What about congruence con-

ditions on k consecutive terms of row n of Stern’s triangle or of Stern’s diatomic
sequence? More general products such as (6.6)?
“Okay, I hope I have convinced you that Stern’s triangle and the Stern diatomic
series are fantastic mathematical creatures! It’s true that they lack the richness
of Blakeley’s triangle, but nevertheless they are not unworthy of mathematical
consideration.”
 CHAPTER 7

Independence Day

PROBLEM LIST

Probability that five numbers are chosen in increasing order 66

k-tuples of subsets of [n] with empty intersection 66
k-element subsets of [p] whose elements sum to 0 (mod p) 66
k-element subsets of [n] whose elements sum to 0 (mod n) 67
Probability that the cycle containing 1 has length k 67
Probability that 1 and 2 are in the same cycle of a random permutation 68
Expected minimum value of n numbers from [0, 1] 68
1 m
∫0 x (1 − x) dx
n
68
1 9 8 4
∫ ∫ ∫R x y z w dx dy dz 69
1 1
∫0 ⋯ ∫0 ∏1≤i<j≤n (xi − xj ) dx1 ⋯dxn
2k
69
Probability that n points on a circle lie on a semicircle 69
Probability that n points on a circle lie in an arc subtending an angle θ 70
Probability that four points on a sphere contain the origin
in their convex hull 70
Probability that n points in a square are in convex position 70
Probability that the last passenger sits in their own seat 70

65
66 7. INDEPENDENCE DAY

The next class was on July 3. Professor Blakeley arrived very stylishly dressed
in a white vest, blue shirt, and red slacks. As he removed his vest he said, “You
all know that tomorrow is Independence Day. In honor of our great nation, today
we will discuss problems concerning independence. There are actually a number
of different mathematical meanings of ‘independence,’ such as linear and algebraic
independence, independent sets of vertices of a graph, independent events in prob-
ability theory, etc. Today I will be concerned with the probabilistic meaning. We’ll
take a look at some problems with a theme that I call ‘hidden independence and
uniformity.’ Lurking in the background are some independent events or uniform
distributions.
“Let me begin with a very simple problem just to get the ball rolling and make
the basic idea clear. The numbers 1, 2, . . . , 100 are written on separate slips of paper
and placed in a hat. An eager volunteer removes five numbers from the hat, one at
a time. What is the probability that they are in increasing order?”
Several hands shot up. Presumably the remaining students did not volunteer
because they thought the problem was too easy. Professor Blakeley pointed to
Emiliano.
“Whatever set of five numbers are chosen, there is a probability 1/5! = 1/120
that they will be in increasing order.”
“Exactly! Perhaps this problem is too easy to worry about hidden indepen-
dence, but one could say that the probability that the numbers are increasing is
independent of which set of five numbers is chosen. Okay, let’s try something a bit
harder. Given positive integers n and k, how many k-tuples (S1 , . . . , Sk ) of subsets
of {1, 2, . . . , n} are there such that S1 ∩ S2 ∩ ⋯ ∩ Sk = ∅?”
The response was not quite as fast as before, but soon most hands were up,
and Professor Blakeley chose Sandra. “Each element i can be in any subset of the
Sj ’s except all of them. There are 2k − 1 allowable subsets, so (2k − 1)n k-tuples
(S1 , . . . , Sk ).”
“Precisely! The choice of which Sj ’s contain i is independent of i, so we we can
multiply the possibilities for each i. Here’s another one that’s pretty easy. Let p
be a prime number and 1 ≤ k ≤ p − 1. How many k-element subsets {a1 , . . . , ak } of
{1, 2, . . . , p} are there such that a1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + ak ≡ 0 (mod p)?”
Fumei was among the first to raise their hands, and Professor Blakeley pointed
to her. “Let us define the subset {a1 , . . . , ak } to be equivalent to all subsets {a1 +
j, . . . , ak +j}, where 0 ≤ j < p, and we are computing ai +j modulo p, i.e., working in
the ring Z/pZ. Clearly this is an equivalence relation. Because p is prime and 1 ≤ k ≤
p − 1, each equivalence class contains exactly p elements. If a1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + ak ≡ d (mod p)
and bi = ai + j, then b1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + bk ≡ d + jk (mod p). The equation d + jk ≡ 0 (mod p)
has exactly one solution j modulo p since k and p are relatively prime. Thus we
have divided the (kp) k-element subsets into equivalence classes, where each class
contains p elements, exactly one of which satisfies the condition we want. Therefore
the total number of subsets satisfying the condition is p1 (kp).”
“Good job!” said Professor Blakeley. “The problem becomes more interesting
when we work modulo any positive integer n rather than a prime. For instance,
one problem on today’s set asserts that the total number f (n) of subsets S of
 7. INDEPENDENCE DAY 67

{1, 2, . . . , n} satisfying ∑i∈S i ≡ 0 (mod n) is given by

1
(7.1) f (n) = ∑ φ(d)2 ,
n/d
n d∣n
d odd
where φ denotes the Euler phi function. There is an elegant argument using gener-
ating functions, and a complicated nonbijective combinatorial proof is known when
n is odd. When n is odd, f (n) is equal to the number of necklaces (up to cyclic
rotation) with n beads, each bead colored either red or blue (a simple special case
of the Frobenius-Burnside lemma for counting the number of orbits of a finite group
action1 ), but no bijection is known between the subsets and the necklaces.
“Let’s go on to something else! Let w be a random permutation (uniform
distribution) of 1, 2, . . . , n, and fix 1 ≤ k ≤ n. What is the probability that in the
disjoint cycle decomposition of w, the length of the cycle containing 1 is k? In
other words, what is the probability that k is the least positive integer for which
wk (1) = 1?”
After a while some students came up with what might be called the
“obvious” proof. Namely, the number of ways to choose a k-cycle containing 1
is (n − 1)(n − 2)⋯(n − k + 1), since there are n − 1 ways to choose w(1), then n − 2
ways to choose w2 (1), etc. There are (n−k)! choices for the rest of the permutation
w, so the desired probability is
(n − 1)(n − 2)⋯(n − k + 1) ⋅ (n − k)! 1
= ,
n! n
independent of k. The students realized that there should be a more elegant way
to see this independence.
Professor Blakeley said, “I’m sure you can soon come up with a good rea-
son, but allow me to show you a way of looking at permutations that will make
a number of similar results transparent. As you know, there is more than one
way to write the disjoint cycle decomposition of a permutation. For instance,
(1, 2, 3)(4, 5)(6, 7) = (5, 4)(6, 7)(3, 1, 2). Let us define the standard representation of
a permutation w of [n] by requiring that (a) each cycle is written with its largest ele-
ment first, and (b) the cycles are written in increasing order of their largest elements.
For instance, the standard form of (1, 4)(2)(3, 7, 5)(6) is (2)(4, 1)(6)(7, 5, 3). De-
fine ŵ to be the permutation obtained by writing the standard form of w and
erasing the parentheses, thereby obtaining a word (sequence) a1 a2 ⋯an which we
interpret as usual as the permutation ŵ defined by ŵ(i) = ai . For instance, if
w = (1, 4)(2)(3, 7, 5)(6), then ŵ = 2416753. The key observation is that the oper-
ation w ↦ ŵ is a bijection on the symmetric group Sn of all permutations of [n].
I won’t insult you by giving the easy proof, which follows from observing that the
left-to-right maxima of ŵ (the elements aj for which aj > ai for all i < j) are the
first elements in each cycle of w written in standard form.
“Now we can see why the probability that the length of the cycle containing 1
equals k of a random permutation w ∈ Sn does not depend on k. Instead of the cycle
containing 1, we can equivalently look at the cycle containing n. If ŵ = a1 a2 ⋯an ,
then the length of the cycle of w containing n is just n + 1 − ŵ−1 (n), the position
of n in ŵ starting from the right. Since ŵ−1 (n) is equally likely to have any value
1, 2, . . . , n, the proof follows.”
1
Mentioned in Chapter 4
68 7. INDEPENDENCE DAY

After a short pause to allow the students to digest this elegant argument,
Professor Blakeley continued, “Try the following: given a random permutation
w ∈ Sn , what is the probability that 1 and 2 are in the same cycle?”
Hands quickly shot up, and Professor Blakeley chose Clayton. “Rather than 1
and 2, we can equivalently ask for the probability that n − 1 and n are in the same
cycle. This is just the probability that n − 1 follows n in ŵ, so the probability is
1/2.”
“Great!” said Professor Blakeley. “You all now seem to really understand this
nice bijection w → ŵ, which is sometimes called the fundamental bijection. So let’s
move on. Choose n real numbers uniformly and independently from the interval
[0, 1]. What is the expected value of mini xi , the minimum value of x1 , . . . , xn ?”
“When n = 1 the expected minimum is 12 ,” volunteered Clayton.
“Brilliant!” said Professor Blakeley. “What if n = 2?”
“It should be 13 ,” replied Clayton. “In fact, it’s easy to see by computing
1 1 1
1/2 ∫0 ∫x
x dy dx, but obviously this isn’t the solution you are looking for. In general
the answer should be 1/(n + 1).”
“Your intuition is good, and it’s not so hard to come up with a computational
proof. Can anyone think of a really elegant proof?”
After not receiving an immediate response, Professor Blakeley continued, “Well,
here is an argument. Choose points x1 , . . . , xn uniformly and independently on a
circle of circumference 1. Then choose an additional point y on the circle. Cut the
circle at y and then ‘straighten out’ into a unit interval [0, 1] where for definiteness
say that moving from 0 to 1 corresponds to moving clockwise on the circle. What
we have are n points x1 , . . . , xn uniformly and independently chosen from [0, 1].
Now by symmetry on the circle the expected distance between any two consecutive
1
points among x1 , . . . , xn , y is n+1 . Hence the expected distance between y and the
1
first xi clockwise from y is n+1 , and this distance is just min xi . Thus the ‘hidden
independence’ is among n + 1 points, not the original n points.
“Great stuff, but we don’t have time to dawdle! Now that we’re warmed up,
let’s try something a little different. Given integers m, n ≥ 0, evaluate the integral
1 m
∫0 x (1 − x) dx.”
n

Jung Wook was the first to raise his hand. “I think this is some evaluation of
the beta function. You can prove it by induction and integration by parts.”
“Ugh!” said Professor Blakeley. “You are correct, but induction should be a
last resort. We want some nice conceptual argument.”
Although the students knew that the solution somehow involved independence
or uniformity, they were unable to figure out what Professor Blakeley had in mind.
“Try to interpret the integral probabilistically,” suggested Professor Blakeley.
“Let’s see,” said Jung Wook, “we can think of x as a number chosen uniformly
in [0, 1]. Then xm is the probability that m other numbers u1 , . . . , um in [0, 1] are
all less than x, and (1 − x)n is the probability that n other numbers v1 , . . . , vn in
[0, 1] are all greater than x.”
“Good start!”
“I got it!” said Patrick. “It’s similar to the previous problem. We choose all
m + n + 1 numbers ui , vj , x at once. There are (m + n + 1)! ways to order them.
The number of orderings for which x is preceded by u1 , . . . , um and followed by
 7. INDEPENDENCE DAY 69

v1 , . . . , vn is m! n!. Hence
1 m! n!
∫ xm (1 − x)n dx = .”
0 (m + n + 1)!
“Exactly!” said Professor Blakeley. “You must admit it’s a neat way to evaluate
an integral. To test your understanding, I have included on today’s problem set
the triple integral
1 9 8 4
(7.2) ∫ ∫ ∫ x y z w dx dy dz,
R

where R is the region of R defined by x, y, z ≥ 0 and x + y + z ≤ 1, and where

3

w = 1 − x − y − z. This was a problem on the 1984 Putnam.2

“Here’s an interesting integral of a similar flavor, namely, for positive integers
n and k, we have
1 1 (kn)! n (jk)!3
(7.3) ∫ ⋯∫ ∏ (xi − xj ) dx1 ⋯dxn =
2k
∏ .
0 0 1≤i<j≤n k!n j=0 (1 + k(n − 1 + j))!
Can anyone see a probabilistic interpretation? I must warn you, however, that no
combinatorial evaluation of this integral is known. The analytic proofs are rather
difficult, though most are completely elementary.”
The students became concerned about Professor Blakeley. Perhaps he was feel-
ing unwell, since he said that the problem was rather difficult instead of pretending
that it was easy. In any event, it didn’t take long to come up with a probabilistic
interpretation, namely, the integral was the probability that a sequence consisting
of n x’s and 2k yij ’s (for all 1 ≤ i < j ≤ n) (chosen from the uniform distribution on
all such sequences) had all the yij ’s occurring between the ith and jth x. It seemed
surprising that no combinatorial proof was known of this simple probability.
“Now let’s look at a couple of more geometric problems,” said Professor Blake-
ley. “Choose n points at random (uniformly and independently) on the circumfer-
ence of a circle. Find the probability pn that all the points lie on a semicircle. For
instance, p1 = p2 = 1.”
Daniel’s hand immediately went up. “Let some point P be the first point, say
in the clockwise direction, of the n points on a semicircle S. For each of the other
points Q, the probability is then 12 that Q lies on S. Thus the total probability is
1/2n−1 .”
“Hmmm. . . ,” said Professor Blakeley. “This doesn’t seem to work for n = 2.”
“Oops,” responded Daniel, “you have to take into account the probability that
P really is the first point, or something like this.”
Since no further suggestions were forthcoming, Professor Blakeley offered a
hint. “For each of the n chosen points x1 , . . . , xn consider also their n antipodes
x̄1 , . . . , x̄n .”
Soon a few hands went up, and Professor Blakeley chose Sandra. “Suppose
that we have to choose our n points by choosing either xi or x̄i for each i. In order
for the points to lie on a semicircle, they must appear consecutively among the 2n
points. There are 2n ways to do this, so the probability they lie on a semicircle is
2n/2n = n/2n−1 . Since this is independent of the points x1 , . . . , xn , this is also the
probability when we choose any n points at random.”

2
The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition.
70 7. INDEPENDENCE DAY

“Very nice! There is a generalization on today’s problem set. Namely, for any
0 < θ < 2π, choosing the n points as before, what is the probability that they are
contained in an arc subtending an angle θ?
“Here is a similar problem. Choose four points at random (uniformly and
independently) on the surface of a sphere. What is the probability that the center
of the sphere is contained in the convex hull of the four points? Recall that the
convex hull of a subset X of Rn is the intersection of all convex sets containing X.”
It seemed plausible to some of the students that the antipode trick might be
applicable to the present problem, but given four points on the sphere together
with their antipodes, it wasn’t so clear how many four-element subsets of them
contained the origin in their convex hull. Though conceivably this could be done
with sufficient geometric intuition, Daniel was the first (except perhaps for Sam)
to realize that it was easier to proceed analytically. “Let’s say that the center of
the sphere is (0, 0, 0). Four points x1 , x2 , x3 , x4 on the sphere have probability 1
of being affinely independent (that is, they don’t lie in a plane), so we can assume
this. There is then up to scalar multiplication a unique nontrivial linear dependence
relation
a1 x1 + a2 x2 + a3 x3 + a4 x4 = (0, 0, 0), ai ∈ R.
The origin will be in the convex hull of the four points if and only if all the ai ’s
have the same sign, for then we can simply divide by ±(a1 + a2 + a3 + a4 ). There
are sixteen choices for the signs (that is, for choosing either xi or its antipode −xi ),
and two of these choices have all signs the same. Thus the probability is 1/8.”
“Very nice!” said Professor Blakeley. “If you’re not familiar with some of the
facts used by Daniel, then you should study his argument later. This problem
was on the 1992 Putnam Competition. Sixteen contestants received eight or more
points out of a maximum of ten points, and no one received 2–7 points.
“Now we have to move on, since there’s a lot of nice problems still to cover. I
hope it will be easy for you to see that if we choose n points uniformly at random
in a square, then the probability that they are in convex position (i.e., no point is
in the convex hull of the other points) is given by
1 2n − 2 2
(7.4) pn = [ ( )] . ”
n! n − 1

The students tried some variants of the antipode trick, but they couldn’t get
anywhere.
“Perhaps I was being a tad optimistic when I suggested that this problem might
be easy for you,” said Professor Blakeley.
Knowing Professor Blakeley, the students realized that this probably meant
that the problem was impossibly difficult or even unsolved, or maybe even false.
At least he seemed to be feeling better.
Indeed, Professor Blakeley continued, “In fact, no simple proof is known. A
difficult proof using induction (ugh) is due to Valtr. Perhaps one of you can find
some elegant solution, as suggested by the simple answer.
“Let’s take a look at one more problem before we call it a morning. Passengers
P1 , . . . , Pn enter a plane with n seats. Each passenger has a different assigned seat.
The first passenger sits in the wrong seat. Thereafter, each passenger either sits
in their seat if unoccupied or otherwise sits in a random unoccupied seat. What is
the probability that the last passenger Pn sits in his or her own seat?”
 7. INDEPENDENCE DAY 71

A couple of students had seen this problem before. The rest thought intensely.
Just before Professor Blakeley was about to reveal the solution, Emiliano volun-
teered. “I think I see it! When Pn boards, the only available seats will be his (or
hers) and the seat assigned to P1 . Passengers P2 , . . . , Pn−1 are just as likely to sit
in P1 ’s assigned seat as Pn ’s, so the probability is 1/2.”
“Great job! Not at all easy to see this so quickly. Okay, time for lunch. I’ll
see you later in the discussion session, and in two days we will continue with some
more independence problems. I wish we didn’t have to wait so long, but as you all
are well aware, tomorrow is Independence Day. For some inscrutable reason there
are no classes. I never have understood why there are no classes during holidays.
What could be a greater source of pleasure than learning something new? It would
make more sense to double the number of classes during holidays and vacations.
I hope none of you will waste your time at the fireworks show tomorrow but will
instead engage in more entertaining and productive activities.”
Although the students did enjoy learning mathematics, they were glad that the
Professor was not in charge of the class schedule at their universities. Despite his
sage advice, not surprisingly every student showed up for the spectacular fireworks.
In fact, Professor Blakeley himself was there and seemed to be enjoying himself as
much as anyone.
 CHAPTER 8

Independence Aftermath

PROBLEM LIST

Probability that xi is the last of n points to be visited for the first time 74
Graphs with the symmetry of the previous problem 74
Enumeration of parking functions 75
Enumeration of parking functions with just one 1 76
Enumeration of parking functions which remain a parking function when
one 1 is removed 76
Number of inequivalent snakes with n squares 77
Formula for number of partitions of n 78
Number of ways to tile a chessboard with snakes 78
Number of ways to tile an n × n board with snakes of size n 79
Number of ways to tile an n × 2n board with snakes of size n 79

73
74 8. INDEPENDENCE AFTERMATH

“Welcome back!” said Professor Blakeley as the students returned to class on

July 5. “It was a long wait, but now we are ready for some more problems on
hidden independence and uniformity. Let’s begin with a very clever one.
“Let x1 , x2 , . . . , xn be n points (in that order) on the circumference of a circle.
Rebecca starts at the point x1 and walks to one of the two neighboring points with
probability 1/2 for each. She continues to walk in this way, always moving from the
present point to one of the two neighboring points with probability 1/2 for each.
Find the probability pi that the point xi is the last unvisited point. In other words,
find the probability pi that when xi is visited for the first time, all the other points
will have already been visited. For instance, p1 = 0 (when n > 1), since x1 is the
first of the n points to be visited.”
It was immediately clear that when n = 2 we have p2 = 1, and when n = 3 by
symmetry p2 = p3 = 1/2. Jung Wook quickly did a “brute force” computation for
n = 4 and obtained the surprising answer p2 = p3 = p4 = 1/3. Could it be that for
general n we have pi = 1/(n − 1) for all 2 ≤ i ≤ n − 1?
After waiting a while without further progress, Professor Blakeley decided to
give a hint. “Consider when Rebecca is adjacent to the point xi , 2 ≤ i ≤ n, for the
first time.”
It wasn’t long before Daniel’s hand went up. “Note that when Rebecca is
adjacent to xi , 2 ≤ i ≤ n, for the first time then Rebecca has not yet visited
xi . Assume Rebecca is adjacent to xi for the first time. Then xi will be the
last unvisited point if and only if Rebecca visits the other point adjacent to xi
before reaching xi . By symmetry the probability for this is independent of i, so
pi = 1/(n − 1) for 2 ≤ i ≤ n.”
“Excellent!” said Professor Blakeley, and the other students had to agree. It
was a quite amazing trick.
“Are there other graphs with this property?” asked Fumei. “Clearly by sym-
metry the complete graph Kn will work, but is that all?”
“A natural question! I assume that the property you have in mind is the
following. Start at any vertex v of an n-vertex graph with no multiple edges and
no loops from a vertex to itself. Do a random walk on the vertices by moving with
equal probability from a vertex to one of its neighbors. Then for any vertex u ≠ v,
the probability that u is the last vertex to be visited for the first time is 1/(n − 1).
Fumei’s question was first raised by Ron Graham, and Lovász and Winkler showed
that the only such graphs are cycles and complete graphs. However, if you want the
equal probability property to hold only for a particular start vertex v, then there
are further examples.
“You can think about this, but now let’s look at another clever problem. This
one involves the concept of parking functions, which have recently shown up in some
surprising contexts. Suppose that a one-way street has n parking spaces on one
side, numbered 1, 2, . . . , n in the order they are encountered when driving down the
street. There are n cars C1 , . . . , Cn . For each 1 ≤ i ≤ n, car Ci (or more accurately,
its driver) has a preferred space 1 ≤ ai ≤ n. The cars park by the following algorithm.
The cars enter the street one at a time in the order C1 , . . . , Cn . The car Ci goes
to its preferred space ai and parks there if it is unoccupied. Otherwise it continues
down the street and parks in the first available space.
 8. INDEPENDENCE AFTERMATH 75

“Sadly this street has a design flaw; there is a tall cliff at the end so any car
unable to park will fall off the cliff and cannot try again.

“We say that the sequence a1 , . . . , an is a parking function if all the cars can
park. For instance, if n = 5, then 4,2,5,4,3 is not a parking function since three cars
will first go to 4 or 5, and there is only room for two of them.
“This example makes it clear that a necessary condition to be a parking function
is that for any 1 ≤ i ≤ n at most i of the terms aj satisfy aj ≥ n − i + 1. In fact,
it is not hard to show that this condition is also sufficient, but we don’t need
that here. Note, however, that this condition implies that every permutation of a
parking function is a parking function. What we are interested in is the number
fn of parking functions of length n. For instance, f1 = 1 (the only parking function
being 1), f2 = 3 (from 11, 12, 21), and f3 = 16:

111 112 121 211 122 212 221 113

131 311 123 132 213 231 312 321.

We could have saved some time by noting that we have one permutation of the
sequence 111, three of 112, three of 122, three of 113, and six of 123, so 16 in all.
So what is fn ?”
“These numbers look like the number of labelled trees on n + 1 vertices,” sug-
gested Clayton. “If this is correct, then fn = (n + 1)n−1 by Cayley’s formula for
trees.”
“Great observation!” said Professor Blakeley. “For those unfamiliar with Cay-
ley’s formula, it says that the number of trees on the vertex set [n] is nn−2 . I should
point out that despite the appellation ‘Cayley’s formula,’ the first proof was due to
Borchardt in 1860, and in fact it was stated without proof in 1857 by Sylvester.
“Clayton’s conjecture suggests that there is some connection between parking
functions and trees, and indeed several ingenious bijections are known. Can anyone
think of a ‘direct’ argument that does not involve trees?”
After receiving no response, Professor Blakeley continued, “Yes, this is quite
tricky. Here is the clever proof due to Henry Pollak. Imagine that we have n + 1
parking spaces numbered 1, 2, . . . , n + 1 arranged counterclockwise in a circle.
76 8. INDEPENDENCE AFTERMATH

“Each car Ci has a preferred space ai as before, but now 1 ≤ ai ≤ n + 1 since

there are n + 1 spaces. The cars follow the same procedure as before, namely, they
enter the circular street one at a time. Each car goes to their preferred space. If
it is unoccupied, then they park there. Otherwise they drive counterclockwise and
park in the first available space. Since the street is circular, all the cars will be able
to park. Thus at the end there will be one unoccupied space u. It’s easy to see
that the sequence (a1 , . . . , an ) is a parking function if and only if u = n + 1.
“Now let 0 ≤ i ≤ n. We change the preferences to (a1 + i, . . . , an + i), where
the terms are taken modulo n + 1 so they lie in the interval [1, n + 1]. Clearly the
parking procedure simply gets rotated i spaces counterclockwise. Thus if u was
unoccupied after following the parking procedure for (a1 , . . . , an ), then u + i will be
unoccupied for (a1 + i, . . . , an + i).
“Can anyone complete the proof?”
Several hands shot up. Emiliano was chosen. “By what you said, for each
(a1 , . . . , an ) there is exactly one value 0 ≤ i ≤ n for which (a1 + i, . . . , an + i) is
a parking function. For fixed (a1 , . . . , an ) let us call these n + 1 sequences (a1 +
i, . . . , an + i) equivalent, clearly an equivalence relation. Each car has n + 1 choices
of a preferred space, so there are (n + 1)n preference sequences (a1 , . . . , an ). Since
each equivalence class has n + 1 elements, there are (n + 1)n−1 of them. Since each
equivalence class contains exactly one parking function, there are (n+1)n−1 parking
functions of length n.”
“Good explanation!” said Professor Blakeley. “A lot more can be done with
parking functions, but we must move on. I’ll just leave a couple of problems for
you to mull over. How many parking functions of length n contain just one 1?
How many parking functions of length n remain a parking function when one 1 is
removed from it?”
Naturally some of the students could not resist working on these problems
immediately, even when Professor Blakeley continued with the next problem.
“It’s time to take a look at some herpetological mathematics. There are many
fascinating problems dealing with tiling rectangles with various sets of tiles. Here
we will be looking at tiles called snakes. We’ll look at some other rectangle tiling
problems later.1
1
Chapter 13
 8. INDEPENDENCE AFTERMATH 77

“A snake on an m × n chessboard is a nonempty subset S of the squares of the

board obtained as follows. Start at one of the squares and continue walking one
step up or to the right, stopping at any time. The squares visited are the squares of
the snake. Here is an example of the 8 × 8 chessboard covered with disjoint snakes:

“If we consider two snakes equivalent if they are translations of each other, then
here are the eight inequivalent snakes of size four (that is, with four squares):

“As a warmup, how many inequivalent snakes have k squares?”

There were soon many volunteers, from whom Fumei was selected. “Let ai be
the number of squares in the ith row of the snake. If the snake has r rows, then the
sequence (a1 , . . . , ar ) determines the snake. There are 2n−1 ways to write n as an
ordered sum a1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + ar of positive integers (where r can vary), so there are 2n−1
snakes with n squares.”
“Super! Hopefully everyone here knows that a sequence (a1 , . . . , ar ) of positive
integers summing to n is called a composition of n. There are many ways to see
that the number of compositions of n ≥ 1 is 2n−1 . One especially elegant argument
is to write down a row of n dots. There are n − 1 spaces between the dots. Choose
78 8. INDEPENDENCE AFTERMATH

any subset S of them, and place a vertical bar at the spaces in S. This divides
the dots into ‘compartments.’ Reading the number of dots in each compartment
from left-to-right gives a bijection between the subsets S and compositions of n.
Since there are 2n−1 subsets of an (n − 1)-element set, it follows that there are 2n−1
compositions of n.
“By the way, if we don’t care about the order of the summands, so we might
as well write the summands in weakly decreasing order, then we obtain a partition
of n. For instance, the five partitions of 4 are 4, 3+1, 2+2, 2+1+1, and 1+1+1+1.
Who can tell me a simple explicit formula for the number p(n) of partitions of n?”
Some of the students chuckled. They already had some familiarity with the
function p(n).
Professor Blakeley continued, “My question has an easy answer: no one can tell
me such a formula. No such formula is known, and its existence is extremely unlikely
in view of what is known about partitions. However, there are some amazing
formulas for p(n) that I would not call simple. For example, let

Ak (n) = ∑ eπis(m,k)−2nm/k ,
0≤m<k
gcd(m,k)=1

where s(m, k) is the Dedekind sum

1 k−1 πj πjm
s(m, k) = ∑ cot ( ) cot ( ).
4k j=1 k k

Then

⎡ √ ⎤
1 √ ⎢ ⎢ d 2 ⎛π 2 1 ⎞⎥⎥
(8.1) p(n) = √ ∑ Ak (n) k ⋅ ⎢ √ sinh (x − ) ⎥ .
⎢ dx ⎝k 3 24 ⎠⎥
2π 2 k≥1 ⎢ x− 1 ⎥
⎣ 24 ⎦x=n

Not the first thing that would come to mind. Despite its horrible appearance, this
infinite sum converges very rapidly to p(n) and in fact is a very efficient method
for computing p(n). For instance, this formula was used to compute p(1020 ), a
number of 11140086260 digits.”
Clayton suggested that the formula was actually intuitively obvious and should
be anyone’s first guess. After Clayton received some skeptical feedback, Professor
Blakeley said, “Well, let’s get back to snakes. Here is the main question for us: in
how many ways can we tile an m×n rectangle with snakes? There is no restriction on
the size or number of snakes. Anyone with ophidiophobia is excused from working
on this problem.”
After waiting a few minutes without any responses, Professor Blakeley said,
“Here is a hint. In the diagram below, consider the set of squares which each
dotted line passes through.”
 8. INDEPENDENCE AFTERMATH 79

Hands soon went up, and Professor Blakeley pointed to Patrick. “It is clear
how to generalize this set of dotted lines to an m × n board. No snake can intersect
three consecutive squares through which a dotted line passes. Equivalently, in the
diagram each dot of a dotted line L corresponds to a square through which L
passes. If we consider the line segment between two consecutive dots, then no two
such segments belonging to the same snake can be consecutive. Associate with each
snake S the set of dotted line segments that connect two consecutive squares of S.
Thus no two of these dotted line segments can be adjacent, that is, they have a
common endpoint.
“Conversely, if we choose any set D of dotted line segments, no two adjacent,
and glue two squares together if they are connected by a segment in D, then we
will obtain a tiling of the rectangle into snakes. Thus the number of tilings is the
number of ways to choose a set D of segments, no two adjacent. It’s easy to see,
for instance by induction, that the number of ways to choose a set of nonadjacent
segments from a path of length k is the Fibonacci number Fk+2 . Thus the total
number of tilings is a product of Fibonacci numbers. It wouldn’t be hard to write
down the exact formula, but I didn’t do this yet. For the 8 × 8 board we get

(F4 F6 F8 F10 F12 F14 F16 )2 = (3 ⋅ 8 ⋅ 21 ⋅ 55 ⋅ 144 ⋅ 377 ⋅ 987)2

= 2206116494952210583142400.”

“Excellent argument, and very quick too!” said Professor Blakeley admiringly.
“Who would like to check Patrick’s computation by drawing diagrams of all the
tilings?”
Rather disappointingly no one volunteered for this task. Professor Blakeley
continued, “Let me mention a snake problem to mull over that appears on today’s
problem set. Show that the number of ways to tile an n × n board with n snakes of
size n is n!. For a more challenging problem, find a recurrence for the number of
tilings of an n × 2n board with 2n snakes of size n.
80 8. INDEPENDENCE AFTERMATH

“Well, I guess that wraps it up for hidden independence and uniformity. You
should now have a good idea of the flavor of this topic. Lots more problems are on
the problem set. Have fun, and see you in class tomorrow!”
 CHAPTER 9

Amanda

PROBLEM LIST

Strategy for guessing that the next card is red 82

Strategy for choosing either the first or last term of a sequence 83
How long does it take Alice and Bob to mow a lawn? 83
A noncommutative identity 84
An identity not provable by high school algebra 85
Does the semiring N have unique factorization? 85
Does the semiring R≥0 [x] have unique factorization? 86

81
82 9. AMANDA

The next day of class Professor Blakeley walked in accompanied by a somewhat

nervous-looking girl around the age of ten or eleven. “This is Amanda,” he said.
“She happens to be my niece and is attending another camp here, a science camp
for students in fourth through sixth grade. Amanda is very interested in math and
wanted to see what a college math camp was like, so I have brought her for a short
visit.”
Amanda gave a shy smile. The students felt a little sorry for her, since she
wouldn’t understand a word that was said.
“Let’s start with a very clever strategy problem. Suppose I have an ordinary
deck of 26 black cards and 26 red cards. I shuffle the deck thoroughly and start
turning over cards one at a time. At any point in the process, before I turn over
the next card, you can say ‘stop’ ! You then win if the next card is red. Clearly
saying ‘stop’ before the first card is turned gives you a 50% chance of success. Is
there a strategy that can do better?”
“If the first card is black,” said Patrick, “then saying ‘stop’ after the first card
gives a 26/51 chance of success.”
“But what if the first card is red?” asked Daniel.
Patrick replied, “Just wait until you have seen more black cards than red cards.
Then say ‘stop’.”
“But what if you never see more black cards than red cards? I think the
probability of this is 1/27, by the ballot problem.”
Professor Blakeley was impressed that Daniel was familiar with the ballot prob-
lem and could immediately see its applicability. However, that did not answer the
question.
Patrick persisted, “It seems plausible that even if you never see more black
cards than red, this strategy will have a success rate of greater than 50%. It looks
like it would be a mess to figure out.”
“Any other ideas?” asked Professor Blakeley.
The students remained silent, but to their great surprise Amanda raised her
hand. They hoped she would not embarrass herself too much.
“Yes, Amanda,” said Professor Blakeley.
“I don’t know anything about probability,” said Amanda, “but guessing that
the next card is red is the same as guessing that the bottom card of the deck is red
since all the remaining cards are random. In other words, the game is the same
as saying ‘stop’ at any time and then guessing that the bottom card is red. The
bottom card is red half the time, so any strategy has a 50% chance of success.”
The students couldn’t believe their ears! A few saw immediately that this
amazing argument was correct, and it didn’t take long for the remaining students
to agree. Was this just a fluke, or was Amanda one of the great math geniuses of
all time?
“Fantastic!” said Professor Blakeley. “This is one of my favorite math tricks for
trivializing a seemingly difficult problem. Congratulations to Amanda for figuring
out this trick so quickly! Well, let’s try another problem. Here’s another one that
doesn’t involve any undergraduate math, so Amanda should understand it.
“Alice and Bob play the following game. They begin with a sequence (a1 , . . . ,
a2n ) of positive integers. The players alternate turns, with Alice moving first.
When it is someone’s turn to move, that person can remove either the first or last
remaining term of the sequence. A player’s score at the end is the sum of his/her
 9. AMANDA 83

chosen numbers. For what sequences will Alice score at least as high as Bob, with
both players employing their best strategy?”
Tension pervaded the classroom as the students struggled to find a solution.
Clearly it wouldn’t work simply for Alice to take the largest available number.
After a couple of minutes Amanda raised her hand.
“Wow,” said Professor Blakeley, “did you really solve another problem?”
“It seems so easy that I might have made a mistake,” said Amanda. “Alice
just sees which is larger, the sum of the numbers in the even or odd positions. At
every step she can choose a term from either sum. Therefore Alice can always score
at least as high as Bob.”
The other students groaned for not having seen this clever trick. “Uncle Mort,
I thought this was supposed to be a class for good problem-solvers,” Amanda con-
tinued, struggling to keep a straight face.
Some of the students had already become suspicious after Amanda’s two solu-
tions, and now there was no doubt. “A ringer!” exclaimed Clayton.
“Amanda is not only very talented at mathematics,” said Professor Blakeley,
“but she is also a good actress. What do you think?”
The students were quite amused by this trick played on them and also impressed
that Amanda had carried it off so well.
“Amanda actually is a quite good mathematician for her age,” said Professor
Blakeley. “She is already studying high school algebra, which is about three levels
beyond her current grade. Can any of you think of a legitimate challenging problem
for her?”
For a while the students were stuck. They had no idea what would be a suitable
problem for Amanda. Finally Sandra asked, “If it takes Alice two hours to mow
a large lawn, and it takes Bob three hours, how long would it take both of them
mowing it together?”
Amanda closed her eyes and pressed her lips together in deep concentration.
After a minute or so she said, “One and one-fifth hours.”
“Terrific!” said Sandra, as she and the other class members applauded. “And
what is that in hours and minutes?”
“One hour and twelve minutes.”
“Great! Some day you will be a regular student in this camp!”
Amanda beamed.
“Wait just a minute,” said Professor Blakeley. “I’m not sure Amanda’s answer
is correct. It depends on the dynamics of the relationship between Alice and Bob.
For instance, if Alice is sufficiently dominant, then she will lie in a hammock sipping
piña co. . . , I mean, lemonade,” he continued after remembering there was a ten-
year-old in the room, “for three hours while Bob mows the lawn.”
Amanda had known Professor Blakeley for all her life and had no problem
understanding that he was joking. She gave a polite chuckle and said that she had
to get back to her real class.
“Bye, Amanda! Good luck! Thanks for coming!” said the students as Amanda
left the room.
“Okay,” said Professor Blakeley. “Time to get back to business. No more
nonsense about mowing lawns. Let’s think a little more about the second Alice
and Bob problem, the one about choosing the first and last terms beginning with
84 9. AMANDA

a1 , . . . , a2n . Is the strategy that Amanda suggested optimal for Alice, assuming the
goal is to achieve the highest possible score?”
Patrick was the first to raise his hand. “I don’t think so. Suppose a1 > a2 ,
a1 > an , and a1 + a3 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + a2n−1 = a2 + a4 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + a2n . If Alice plays Amanda’s strategy
she will end up with a score of a2 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + a2n . However, if she chooses a1 first and
then after Bob’s move plays Amanda’s strategy, she will end up with more, since
after Bob’s first move Alice’s score will be strictly larger than Bob’s.”
“Nice!” said Professor Blakeley. “I don’t think a simple strategy is known for
maximizing one’s score. The best known way to determine the strategy is by using
dynamic programming techniques.
“Since I mentioned high school algebra, let’s jazz things up by looking at non-
commutative high school algebra. How difficult can it be to prove an identity from
this subject?
“Here is an example. Suppose that in a noncommutative (but of course asso-
ciative) ring R with identity we have two elements x, y such that 1−xy is invertible.
Show that 1 − yx is also invertible, and then

(9.1) (1 + x)(1 − yx)−1 (1 + y) = (1 + y)(1 − xy)−1 (1 + x). ”

Despite the simple statement, the students didn’t find this problem so easy.
Eventually Jung Wook came up with the idea that if we can formally write

(1 − yx)−1 = 1 + yx + yxyx + yxyxyx + . . .

= 1 + y(1 + xy + xyxy + . . . )x
= 1 + y(1 − xy)−1 x,

then it would follow that (1 − yx)−1 = 1 + y(1 − xy)−1 x.

“Hold on,” said Fumei. “How do you know this kind of power series expansion
is valid?”
“Just pass to some kind of noncommutative power series ring containing R,”
replied Jung Wook. “I’m not sure about the details, but it should be straightfor-
ward.”
“The theory of completion has it subtleties, even in the commutative case,” said
Professor Blakeley. “In particular, a ring is not always contained in its completion
(with respect to some ideal). We would like an elementary computational proof.”
“Okay,” said Jung Wook, “but my argument does suggest that this is a correct
formula for (1 − yx)−1 .”
“An excellent insight! Can someone prove this formula?”
It didn’t take long to come up with the straightforward verification

(1 − yx)(1 + y(1 − xy)−1 x) = 1 − yx + y(1 − xy)−1 x − yxy(1 − xy)−1 x

= 1 − yx + y(1 − xy)(1 − xy)−1 x
= 1.

Some of the students realized that one also needed to show (by a similar argument)
that (1 + y(1 − xy)−1 x)(1 − yx) = 1, since in a ring (unlike a group) it is possible for
ab = 1 but not ba = 1.
“Now that we know that 1 − yx is invertible, how do we show that

(1 + x)(1 − yx)−1 (1 + y) = (1 + y)(1 − xy)−1 (1 + x) ?”

 9. AMANDA 85

asked Professor Blakeley. “If we could expand (1 − xy)−1 and (1 − yx)−1 in a power
series, then there would be no problem since both sides become the sum of all
alternating products of x’s and y’s, but a priori such an expansion is not justified.”
This simple noncommutative identity proved surprisingly tricky. Professor
Blakeley could have assigned it as a homework problem, but he decided instead
to show the solution right away when no one seemed to be getting anywhere. Even
Sam, when asked, could only give an embarrassed negative shake of his head.
“Let u = (1 − xy)−1 and v = (1 − yx)−1 . Note that (1 − yx)y = y(1 − xy), and
therefore yu = vy. Thus
(1 + x)v(1 + y) = v + xv + yu + xyu
= v + xv + yu + u − (1 − xy)u
= u + v + xv + yu − 1.
This last expression is symmetric with respect to the permutation (written in dis-
joint cycle form) (x, y)(u, v), so an affirmative answer follows.
“In fact, the power series method is actually valid. A vast generalization is due
to Daniel Krob. An informal way to state this generalization is that any identity in
noncommutative variables which holds after formally writing (1−a)−1 = 1+a+a2 +. . .
(provided this makes sense formally) continues to hold in any ring for which the
identity is defined.”
After a brief pause, Professor Blakeley continued, “This ‘noncommutative high
school algebra’ reminds me of an amusing result of Alex Wilkie concerning ordinary
high school algebra. Namely, if one uses the axioms:
(1) x + y = y + x,
(2) (x + y) + z = x + (y + z),
(3) x ⋅ 1 = x,
(4) x ⋅ y = y ⋅ x,
(5) (x ⋅ y) ⋅ z = x ⋅ (y ⋅ z),
(6) x ⋅ (y + z) = x ⋅ y + x ⋅ z,
(7) 1x = 1,
(8) x1 = x,
(9) xy+z = xy ⋅ xz ,
(10) (x ⋅ y)z = xz ⋅ y z ,
(11) (xy )z = xy⋅z ,
then one cannot prove the (true) identity
((1 + x)y + (1 + x + x2 )y )x ⋅ ((1 + x3 )x + (1 + x2 + x4 )x )y
= ((1 + x)x + (1 + x + x2 )x )y ⋅ ((1 + x3 )y + (1 + x2 + x4 )y )x .
At first you might think that this shows that there are identities that can be stated
but not proved within high school algebra, but note that none of the axioms involve
subtraction. What is really being shown is that there are identities not involving
subtraction that cannot be proved without using subtraction. Still, it is an inter-
esting and rather counterintuitive result.
“That reminds me of a somewhat similar though much simpler fact. A semi-
ring satisfies all the axioms of a ring except the existence of additive inverses.
For instance, the nonnegative integers N form a semiring. We can define primes,
irreducibles, and unique factorization in semirings just as we do for rings. Does the
semiring N have unique factorization?”
86 9. AMANDA

“Sure,” said Daniel. “Factorization is the same as in Z. Negative factors are

irrelevant since −1 is a unit in Z.”
“Very good! Now what about R≥0 [x], the semiring of all polynomials in x with
nonnegative real coefficients?”
“Same reasoning,” replied Daniel. “Polynomials with negative coefficients. . . .”
He became silent.
“Yes?”
“Maybe I spoke too quickly, since polynomials with negative coefficients cannot
be multiplied by a unit in R[x] (that is, by a nonzero real number) and become a
polynomial with nonnegative coefficients. In fact, probably R≥0 [x] does not have
unique factorization.”
“Can anyone think of an example showing this?” asked Professor Blakeley.
Sam was acting quite excited, so Professor Blakeley asked him if he had an answer.
Sam walked up to the board and wrote:
(9.2) (1 + x3 )(1 + x + x2 ) = (1 + x)(1 + x2 + x4 ).
“Nice!” said Professor Blakeley. “I believe that you have found the simplest
example. All the four factors are irreducible in R≥0 [x], but none is a unit times
another. Of course over R[x] there is no problem because we have the complete
factorization
(1 + x)(1 − x + x2 )(1 + x + x2 ).
“In fact, there is a lot of interest these days in the complexity of ‘subtraction-
free’ computations. Only addition, multiplication, and division are allowed. For
instance, the polynomial 1 − x + x2 can be computed in a subtraction-free way as
(x3 + 1)/(x + 1). What polynomials (or rational functions), say in finitely many
variables over the integers, can be computed without subtraction, and how many
steps are necessary to compute them? Time is up for this class, but we can discuss
it further during the afternoon sessions.”
 CHAPTER 10

An Aesthetical Error

PROBLEM LIST

A proof that π = 0 88
The operation x ∗ y = xlog y 88
Fields F for which F + ≅ F ∗ ⊕ Z/2Z 90
Maximum dimension of a space of n × n real nilpotent matrices 90
Maximum dimension of a space of n × n real diagonalizable matrices 90
Maximum dimension of a space of n × n real matrices whose nonzero
matrices have a nonzero real eigenvalue 90
Maximum dimension of a space of n × n real matrices for which 0 is
the only real eigenvalue 91
Maximum dimension of a space of n × n real matrices such that every
nonzero matrix is nonsingular 91
Maximum number of linear independent vector fields on an (n − 1)-sphere 91
Dimensions of finite-dimensional division algebras over R 92
A 9-dimensional space of real 16 × 16 matrices whose nonzero matrices
are nonsingular 93
Maximum dimension of a space of n × n real matrices such that every
matrix has a real eigenvalue 93
Maximum dimension of an affine space of real n × n nonsingular matrices 94

87
88 10. AN AESTHETICAL ERROR

When Professor Blakeley entered the classroom the next morning, he turned
on the overhead projector. “Let’s see if you can find the flaws, if any, in a couple
of proofs,” he said. He pressed some keys on the laptop that was connected to the
projector. On the screen appeared the following text.
Define
1 dx
I =∫ .
−1 1 + x2
We know from elementary calculus that I = 2 . Set y = 1/x. When x = −1, then
π

y = −1. Similarly y = 1 when x = 1. Moreover, dx = d(1/y) = −dy/y 2 . Hence

1 −dy
I =∫
−1 y (1 + y −2 )
2
1 dy
= −∫
−1 1 + y 2
= −I,
so π = 0.
“Any comments?” asked Professor Blakeley.
Clayton said, “We have found an inconsistency in mathematics. This is sad.”
“On the contrary,” said Professor Blakeley, “it is a time for great rejoicing.
You all know that the Clay Mathematics Institute has announced seven Millen-
nium Prize Problems, each of which has a one million dollar prize for the solution.
To receive the prize the solution ‘must be published in a refereed mathematics
publication of worldwide repute’ (among other conditions). Only one of the prob-
lems (the Poincaré conjecture) has been solved up to now, but if mathematics is
inconsistent, then we can prove any statement by contradiction. Hence we should
immediately write up the six proofs of the remaining problems and send them off
to Annals of Mathematics. Once news of the inconsistency gets out there will be a
huge stampede of mathematicians solving long-open problems.”
Alas, it was clear to the students that there was no inconsistency, but rather
a flaw, in Professor Blakeley’s argument. They considered it too simple to bother
volunteering, so Professor Blakeley continued with another screen display.
Define a binary operation ∗ on the set R+ of positive reals by
x ∗ y ∶= xlog y .
Since x ∗ y = e(log x)(log y) , it follows that ∗ is associative, commutative, and
distributive over multiplication. Moreover, the number e = 2.718 . . . is an identity
element for this operation, while 1 ∗ x = 1 for all x ∈ R+ . The inverse to x ≠ 1
under the operation ∗ is e1/(log x) . Thus R+ with the operations × (multiplication)
and ∗ is a field.
“Does anyone see the error?” asked Professor Blakeley.
The students looked intensively at this argument, but they could not see any-
thing wrong. The mysterious operation ∗ was simply the transport by the function
et on R of the operation of multiplication. Since et also carried addition to multi-
plication, all the properties were clear.
Professor Blakeley was becoming more and more agitated as the students
searched for an error. Finally he could contain himself no longer. “Don’t stu-
dents nowadays have any aesthetic sense? Take a look at the symbol ∶=. The colon
 10. AN AESTHETICAL ERROR 89

and the equals sign are too far apart! Here it is blown up,” he said as he showed

∶=
another slide:

“Ugly, ugly, ugly! And on some versions of LATEX it’s even worse—the colon
and equal sign are not lined up correctly! How can this problem be rectified?”
The students were relieved that nothing was wrong with their mathematical
reasoning, though they were concerned about their aesthetic judgment. The colon
and equals sign looked okay to them. The two symbols could be moved closer using
/hspace, but this seemed an inelegant solution. Emiliano suggested that there might
already be a command for the correct symbol.
“Exactly!” said Professor Blakeley. The mathtools package has the command
/coloneqq. Compare the ugly colon followed by equals sign with the beautiful
/coloneqq:
∶= ∶=
“Unfortunately there is no time for further discussion of mathematical typogra-
phy, as we should get back to actual mathematics. However, this evening I suggest
that you all read Kant’s Critique of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment.”
Clayton raised his hand and asked, “Do you have any other examples of bad
notation?”
“An excellent question!” replied Professor Blakeley. “Perhaps the worst no-
tation of all time is due to Barry Mazur. He was giving a lecture and wanted to
annoy Serge Lang, a stickler for good notation, who was in the audience. When
the letter Ξ (upper case Greek xi) is drawn by hand, it consists of three horizontal
line segments:

“Mazur let Ξ be a complex number and considered the complex conjugate of

Ξ divided by Ξ:”

After waiting for the laughter to die down, Professor Blakeley continued, “Some
similar awful notation occurs in Chinese and Japanese arithmetic. For instance, the
formula 11 + 2 − 1 = 12 becomes:
”
The students who were not familiar with Chinese characters did not get it,
while the others realized that Chinese and Japanese people would never combine
Western math symbols with Chinese characters for numbers, such as (one),
(two), and (ten).
“By the way,” said Professor Blakeley, “the problem I showed you today about
the operation x ∗ y is related to the fact that
R∗ ≅ R+ ⊕ Z/2Z,
where R∗ denotes the multiplicative group of R, and R+ the additive group. Which
fields F have the ‘opposite’ property, namely,
(10.1) F + ≅ F ∗ ⊕ Z/2Z ? ”
90 10. AN AESTHETICAL ERROR

This was not such a difficult question. Almost everyone saw that the presence
of an element of order two in F + meant that F had characteristic 2, i.e., x + x = 0
for all x ∈ F . Since any finite subgroup of the multiplicative group of a field is
cyclic, F + could have only one element of order 2. Hence the unique field (up to
isomorphism) satisfying (10.1) is the finite field F2 .
Professor Blakeley continued, “Now let’s take a look at some linear algebra,
a little off the beaten path. The set Mn (R) of n × n real matrices is a real vec-
tor space of dimension n2 . Let’s consider some subspaces of Mn (R) of maximum
dimension satisfying various properties. For instance, what’s the maximum dimen-
sion of a subspace V of Mn (R) all of whose elements are nilpotent, i.e., have only
the eigenvalue 0?”
“There is an obvious conjecture,” said Daniel.
“Namely?”
“Namely, (n2 ), achieved by the strictly upper triangular matrices.”
“A good guess, but how to prove it? Note that it isn’t enough to show that the
strictly upper triangular matrices form a maximal subspace of nilpotent matrices,
as there might be a completely different such subspace of larger dimension.”
To the amazement of everyone else, Sam soon raised his hand. Naturally Pro-
fessor Blakeley was excited to have him answer.
Sam said, “The space V of real symmetric matrices has dimension (n+1 2
), and
only the zero matrix is nilpotent (since symmetric matrices are diagonalizable).
Now (n2 ) + (n+1
2
) = n2 . If A and B are subspaces of an m-dimensional vector space
and dim A + dim B > m, then A ∩ B ≠ {0}. Hence any subspace of Mn (R) of
dimension greater than (n2 ) must contain a nonzero symmetric matrix, and the
proof follows.”
“Super!” said Professor Blakeley. “Great argument! Okay, who besides Sam
can tell me the largest dimension of a subspace of Mn (R) for which every element
is diagonalizable?”
Several hands quickly shot up. Professor Blakeley pointed to Fumei. “Let Sn
be the space of symmetric matrices as in Sam’s argument, and let Tn be the space
of strictly upper triangular matrices. Sam explained why Mn (R) = Sn ⊕ Tn . Since
every matrix in Sn is diagonalizable and no nonzero matrix in Tn is diagonalizable,
the space Sn must have the highest dimension, namely, (n+1 2
).”
“Right!” said Professor Blakeley. “The decomposition Mn (R) = Sn ⊕ Tn gives
us two results for the price of one!
“What about the maximum dimension of a subspace X of Mn (R) such that
every nonzero matrix in X has a nonzero real eigenvalue?”
The students quickly realized that every nonzero symmetric matrix had all its
eigenvalues real, with at least one of them nonzero, so it seemed plausible that
dim X > dim Sn = (n+1 2
). No one could think of such a space X, however, and
finally the light dawned for Jung Wook. He said, “Let Skn denote the subspace
of Mn (R) of skew-symmetric matrices A, i.e., A = −At . It has dimension (n2 ), and
every eigenvalue of A is purely imaginary, i.e., has real part 0. Moreover, skew-
symmetric matrices are diagonalizable since they are normal (i.e., AAt = At A), so
every nonzero skew-symmetric matrix has at least one (actually, at least two for
n ≥ 2) nonzero eigenvalues. Since dim Skn = (n2 ) = dim Mn (R) − dim Sn , it follows
that the maximum possible dimension is (n+1 2
), achieved by Sn .”
 10. AN AESTHETICAL ERROR 91

“Right you are! It is curious that the maximum dimension of a subspace such
that every nonzero matrix in it has at least one nonzero real eigenvalue is the
same as the maximum dimension of a subspace such that every matrix has all its
eigenvalues real.
“I’m sure it will be easy for you to get some more mileage out of the decompo-
sition Mn (R) = Sn ⊕ Skn . For instance, the maximum dimension of a subspace of
Mn (R) for which 0 is the only real eigenvalue is (n2 ).
“Now let’s turn to a much more challenging variant. Given 1 ≤ r ≤ n, what is
the maximum dimension ρr (n) of a subspace Y of Mn (R) such that every nonzero
element of Y has at least r nonzero eigenvalues? One value of r is easy. Who can
tell me what this is?”
Among the volunteers Professor Blakeley chose Patrick. “We just did the case
r = 1. We got ρ1 (n) = (n+12
).”
“Looks good to me!” said Professor Blakeley. “Now let’s try the other extreme,
namely, ρn (n). In other words, what is the maximum dimension of a subspace of
Mn (R) for which every nonzero matrix is nonsingular? I don’t expect anyone to
figure this out, but here is a little table.”
n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
ρn (n) 1 2 1 4 1 2 1 8 1 2 1 4
n 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
ρn (n) 1 2 1 9 1 2 1 4 1 2 1 8
n 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
ρn (n) 1 2 1 4 1 2 1 10 1 2 1 4
“Does anyone see any patterns?”
“ρn (n) = 1 if n is odd,” several students said.
“Yes, that stares you in the face. Perhaps we can prove this special case.”
It wasn’t long before hands went into the air. Emiliano was chosen. “Let A
and B be two linearly independent nonsingular matrices in Mn (R), where n is odd.
Let λ be a real eigenvalue (necessarily nonzero) of B −1 A with eigenvector x, which
exists since the characteristic polynomial of B −1 A has odd degree. Then Ax = λBx,
so A − λB is singular and nonzero.”
“Not bad! The first step in solving this problem should be to ask how we can
use the hypothesis that n is odd. In Emiliano’s solution, it boils down to the fact
that a real polynomial of odd degree has a real zero. So now we are halfway there!
What about even n?”
First it was obvious to conjecture that ρn (n) = 2 when n ≡ 2 (mod 4). Soon after
that the students conjectured that in fact ρn (n) depended only on the largest power
2u of 2 dividing n. The data gave the values 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10 for u = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
“An excellent observation!” said Professor Blakeley. “In fact, this conjecture
is true, and here is a table for u ≤ 12.”
u 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
ρ2u (2u ) 1 2 4 8 9 10 12 16 17 18 20 24 25
“Can someone tell me why ρn (n) ≤ n?,” continued Professor Blakeley.
Several students quickly saw that if A1 , . . . , An+1 were linearly independent
matrices in Mn (R) and 0 ≠ x ∈ Rn , then we must have
α1 A1 (x) + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + αn+1 An+1 (x) = 0
92 10. AN AESTHETICAL ERROR

for some α1 , . . . , αn+1 ∈ R, not all zero. But then α1 A1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + αn+1 An+1 is singular
and nonzero.
“After this things start getting tough,” said Professor Blakeley, “so I will just
tell you some interesting facts.
“Let n = (2m + 1)24a+b , where 0 ≤ b < 4. Then ρn (n) = 8a + 2b . This is a famous
result of J. Frank Adams in 1962. Hurwitz, Radon, and Eckmann showed that
ρ(n) ≥ 8a + 2b (you might try to do this yourself, using a hint I will give soon), and
Adams showed equality. The proof of Adams is based on homotopy theory. By a
nonvanishing vector field F on the sphere

Sn−1 = {x ∈ Rn ∶ ∣x∣ = 1},

we mean a continuous assignment of a nonzero tangent vector Fx to each point x

of Sn−1 . A set S = {F, G, . . . } of nonvanishing vector fields is linearly independent
if the set of vectors Fx , Gx , . . . is linearly independent for all x ∈ Sn−1 . Perhaps you
have heard of the ‘hairy ball theorem’ which states that there is no nonvanishing
vector field when n − 1 is even. For the case n − 1 = 2, the hairy ball theorem is
sometimes stated in more colorful terms like ‘you can’t comb the hair on a coconut.’
“It’s not so hard to see that the maximum number of linearly independent
vector fields on Sn−1 is just ρn (n) − 1, and it is the vector field problem which
Adams solved by topological methods.
“Let us consider how we might find some subspaces of Mn (R) for which every
nonzero matrix is nonsingular. Let A be an n-dimensional real division algebra, i.e.,
an n-dimensional real vector space with an operation of multiplication such that
(a) R is contained in the center of A (that is, αx = xα for all α ∈ R and x ∈ A), (b)
multiplication is left and right-distributive over addition, and (c) for any elements
a ≠ 0 and b, the equations ax = b and ya = b have exactly one solution. We do not
assume that multiplication is associative.
“For a ∈ A define a map Ta ∶ A → A by Ta (x) = ax. Then Ta is a linear
transformation on A which is nonsingular by (c) above. Moreover, it is clear that
for α, β ∈ R we have Tαa+βb = αTa + βTb . It follows that the set {Ta ∶ a ∈ A} is an n-
dimensional subspace of the set of real linear transformations A → A such that every
nonzero Ta is nonsingular. Thus we have achieved equality in the bound ρn (n) ≤ n
which we proved earlier. Let me note that the space T = {Ta ∶ a ∈ A} need not be
closed under multiplication; this will be the case precisely when multiplication in
A is associative, in which case A ≅ T as R-algebras.
“Now over the real numbers we have division algebras D of the following di-
mensions d:
● d = 1: of course here D = R.
1 0
● d = 2: now we can take D = C. An R-basis for D is given by [ ] and
0 1
0 1
[ ].
−1 0
● d = 4: we can take D to be the famous algebra H (for Hamilton) of quater-
nions. Naturally this algebra isn’t commutative since C is algebraically
closed.
● d = 8: now we can take D to be the algebra O of octonions, discovered
independently by John T. Graves in 1843 and Arthur Cayley soon after.
 10. AN AESTHETICAL ERROR 93

“It is easy to see from the formula ρn (n) = 8a + 2b that ρn (n) = n if and only
if n = 1, 2, 4, 8. Thus we have shown (assuming the formula for ρn (n)) that every
finite-dimensional division algebra over R has dimension 1, 2, 4, or 8. In fact, this
fundamental result was not known until Adams proved the formula for ρn (n).”
After a short break Professor Blakeley resumed. “Let me now show you that
ρ16 (16) ≥ 9. Given that ρ8 (8) = 8 we clearly have ρ16 (16) ≥ 8, since we can replace
A 0
the 8 × 8 matrix A with the 16 × 16 matrix [ ]. Once you understand how to
0 A
add one more dimension, you can think about how to get ρn (n) ≥ 8a + b in general.
“Let V be an 8-dimensional subspace of M8 (R) (constructed from the octo-
nions) whose nonzero matrices are nonsingular. For each A ∈ V and α ∈ R, define a
linear transformation
τA,α ∶ R8 ⊕ R8 → R8 ⊕ R8
by
τA,α (u, v) = (Av + αu, At u − αv).
The set of all τA,α ’s form a 9-dimensional subspace W of M16 (R), so it remains
to show that every nonzero element of W is nonsingular. If not, there would be a
nonzero vector (u, v) in the kernel of some τA,α with (A, α) ≠ (0, 0), so
Av + αu = 0, At u − αv = 0.
Multiplying the first equation on the left by ut gives ut Av = −αut u. Multiplying
the second equation on the left by v t and transposing gives ut Av = αv t v. Thus
α(ut u + v t v) = 0 ⇒ α = 0.
Then Av = 0 and At u = 0. Since at least one of u, v is nonzero, we see that A is
singular and hence A = 0, a contradiction.
“Now let D be the set of all proved theorems, and let Q be the theorem that
all nonzero elements of W are nonsingular. Then Q∈D.”
The students were impressed by these beautiful connections between linear
algebra (spaces of nonsingular matrices), topology (vector fields on spheres), and
algebra (division algebras over R). They could see that finding ρr (n) for any r was
likely to be very difficult. They also realized that Professor Blakeley must really
love this topic since he went over thirty minutes without telling a joke until the
very end.
“Given the above results, it is natural to ask for the maximum dimension of a
subspace V of Mn (R) such that every matrix in V has at least one real eigenvalue
(including 0). Any thoughts?”
Some hands went up almost instantaneously. Sandra was selected. “If n is odd,
then the maximum dimension is n2 . Every matrix in Mn (R) has a real eigenvalue
since a real polynomial of odd degree has a real zero.”
“Exactly! And what about even n?”
This was less clear to Sandra. “A lower bound is n2 − n + 1,” she said, “achieved
by matrices for which all the entries in the first row except possibly the first entry
are 0. But I don’t immediately see whether one can do better. Clearly an upper
bound is n2 − 1.”
“Here is a fact that might be useful. Using the theory of Clifford algebras, one
can construct a subspace W of Mn (R) of dimension ρn (n) such that no nonzero
94 10. AN AESTHETICAL ERROR

matrix in W has a real eigenvalue. Note that this is best possible by the definition
of ρn (n).”
“I see,” said Sandra. “The spaces V and W have only 0 in common, so we get
the improved upper bound (when n is even) of n2 − ρn (n). Is this best possible?”
“I don’t know. Something to think about.”
Professor Blakeley wasn’t quite finished. “I’ll mention one problem on today’s
problem set. Show that for any field F, the maximum dimension of an affine
subspace of Mn (F) for which every element is nonsingular is (n2 ), achieved for
instance by the upper triangular matrices with 1’s on the main diagonal. Have
fun!”
 CHAPTER 11

Miraculous Cancellation

PROBLEM LIST

Three states with three points in common to all three 96

USA state closest to Africa 97
Factorization of x2 − y 2 over C 97
Factorization of f (x) − g(y) over C 98
Prime numbers with n consecutive 7’s in their decimal expansion 99
n × n magic square of distinct primes 99
Can f (x)2 have fewer nonzero coefficients than f (x)? 99
Is a certain subgroup H of the group G of all infinite sequences of
integers a direct summand? 100
With G as above, every homomorphism f ∶ G → Z is determined by
its value on unit vectors 101
G is not a free abelian group 101
Every homomorphism ψ∶ G → Z vanishes on all but finitely many unit
vectors 101

95
96 11. MIRACULOUS CANCELLATION

Professor Blakeley began the next day of class by saying, “Let’s warm up with
an application of graph theory to geography. Do there exist three states of the
United States with three points in common to all three of them?”
None of the students had a very accurate map of the USA in their heads, so
they pulled out their laptops, tablets, and phones to take a look. They could not
find three states with the desired property.
“Suppose we put a point in the interior of each of the three states,” said Pro-
fessor Blakeley, “and connect it by three nonintersecting curves to each of the three
points in common to all three of the states. Does anyone see what we have? Think
graph-theoretically.”
Jung Wook was the first to volunteer. “Let the three interior points and three
intersection points be the vertices of a graph. Since each interior point is connected
to each intersection point, the graph is isomorphic to the complete bipartite graph
K3,3 .”
Professor Blakeley drew a diagram of this graph on the board:

Then he said, “So what can we conclude?”

A number of hands shot up, and Clayton was chosen. “We have an embedding
of K3,3 without crossing edges on the surface of a sphere. This contradicts the fact
that K3,3 is nonplanar. Therefore three such states do not exist.”
“I am glad to see that you have some familiarity with planar graphs,” said the
Professor, “but I think there must be a flaw in your reasoning because in fact three
such states do exist.”
What could be the flaw? It was unlikely that there was a contradiction in
mathematics. After a while Sandra ventured, “I think we are assuming that the
states are connected. If a state wasn’t connected we could use an interior point in
each of its components, maybe giving a planar graph with seven vertices.”
“Super! You are on the right track! Now which state isn’t connected?”
“Michigan!” said several students.
“The land area of Michigan isn’t connected,” said Professor Blakeley, “but the
state as a whole is. There is water between the two land areas that still belongs to
Michigan. I am afraid you have to look elsewhere.”
The students stared at their screens but could not find a disconnected state.
The Professor continued, “You need quite an accurate map to see this. If you
look at the southwest corner of Kentucky, you will see that there is a tiny area
separated from the rest of the state. It is then clear from the map that the three
states are Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee.” He then drew a sketch on the board,
where M = Missouri, K = Kentucky, and T = Tennessee.
 11. MIRACULOUS CANCELLATION 97

Mississippi River

M
K K

M
T
“Cool!” said Clayton, “but why does Kentucky have this extra component?”
“Excellent question! At one time the western part of the southern boundary
of Kentucky was defined to be the land north of a certain latitude and south of
the Mississippi River. Then the river changed its course, creating the present
situation. Subsequently the definition of Kentucky was changed so that this kind
of phenomenon cannot happen again.
“By the way, does anyone know of a geologically significant property of this
tiny piece of land that got cut off from the rest of the state?”
Unsurprisingly there were no volunteers, so Professor Blakeley answered his
own question. “It lies in the center of the most hazardous area for earthquakes in
the USA east of the Rocky Mountains. It was at or very near the epicenter of one
of the three New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–12, the largest known earthquakes
to occur in the USA east of the Rockies.
“There are quite a few other ‘paradoxical’ geography facts, mainly based on
the earth’s surface being a sphere rather than a plane, or more psychologically, on
common misperceptions about the relative position of various geographical entities.
As a nice example, which state of the USA is closest to Africa?”
The natural guess seemed to be Florida, so the students realized that this could
not be the answer. As you travel south down the east coast of the USA the coastline
moves to the west away from Africa, so conceivably any east coast state could be
the answer. Given the question, the least likely state was probably the correct
answer, so after a brief discussion, but without consulting a map, the students
guessed Maine.
“Exactly! Okay, one final geography question, though not at all mathemati-
cal. If you move due east from Vol Hall at the University of Tennessee, you will
eventually leave the USA. When you next reach land, in what country will you be?”
Why such a specific starting point?, thought the students. Perhaps you will
end up on the exact boundary of two countries and are unable to decide which is
the correct answer. Eventually they were forced to look at some accurate maps.
Fumei was the first to say, “Algeria!”
“Right you are!” said Professor Blakeley. “Amusing because Algeria does not
border on the Atlantic Ocean.”
After dispensing with this geographical nonsense, Professor Blakeley returned
to real mathematics. “Earlier1 we looked at a high school algebra identity. Let’s
continue with another high school algebra topic, factoring polynomials. Who can
factor x2 − y 2 over the complex numbers?”
1 Chapter 9
98 11. MIRACULOUS CANCELLATION

Clearly this was a rhetorical question, so no one volunteered. The Professor

continued, “Note that this polynomial has the form f (x) − g(y). Suppose that f (x)
and g(y) are any complex polynomials. If f (x) = g(x), then f (x) − g(y) will have
a factor x − y. More generally, if f (x) − g(y) is reducible over C and if a(x), b(y)
are nonconstant polynomials, then f (a(x)) − g(b(y)) will also be reducible. Let’s
call a polynomial f (x) ∈ C[x] indecomposable if it cannot be written in the form
f (a(x)), where a(x) is a polynomial of degree at least two.
“The big question is whether there are any other cases for which f (x) − g(y) is
reducible over C, where f and g are indecomposable, and there are no c, d ∈ C for
which g(cx + d) = f (x). Any thoughts?”
Some students thought of the factorization

x4 + 4y 4 = (x2 − 2xy + 2y 2 )(x2 + 2xy + 2y 2 ).

However, this factorization was basically irrelevant to the problem. It was an

interesting example of a factorization over Q (or Z), but over C any polynomial
xn + ty n (t ∈ C) factors into linear factors over C. Moreover, the polynomials
f (x) = xn and g(y) = −ty n satisfy g(ax) = f (x), where a = (−t)−1/n . After several
minutes of concentrated effort no examples were found. The consensus was that
there were no other examples, though no one saw how to prove this.
“Didn’t you learn factorization in high school?” said Professor Blakeley. “I
might need to have your high school diplomas rescinded.” He then wrote down
7t √ t √ √
f (x) = x7 − (1 + −7)x5 + (7 − −7)x4 − 7t2 (4 − −7)x3
2 2
√ t2 √
−2t2 (7 + 2 −7)x2 + (5 + 49t + (21t − 1) −7) x − 7t3 ,
2
7t √ t √ √
g(y) = −y + (1 − −7)y + (7 + −7)y 4 + 7t2 (4 + −7)y 3
7 5
2 2
√ t 2 √
−2t2 (7 − 2 −7)y 2 − (5 + 49t − (21t − 1) −7) y − 7t3 ,
2
where t is any nonzero complex number.
“I leave it to you to find a factorization of f (x) − g(y). It is obvious that there
are no examples of smaller degree.”
Emiliano then interrupted, “Why is this obvious?”
“I am using the word ‘obvious’ to mean ‘I know that it is true’,” replied Pro-
fessor Blakeley. “That reminds me of a little joke. A professor is lecturing to his
students, writes a formula on the board, and states that it is obvious. A student
interrupts and asks why it is obvious. The professor stares at the formula for several
minutes and then walks out of the room. Half an hour later he returns and says, ‘I
was right! It is obvious!’
“Assuming that indeed there are no examples f (x), g(y) to the original problem
of degree less than seven, the question then arises, what other degrees are possible?
Try to write up a complete, self-contained solution during the break.”
Although the students were suspicious of Professor Blakeley’s request, some
of them worked on the problem to no avail. After the break Professor Blakeley
said, “No solutions? That is disappointing. It turns out that there are exactly five
remaining degrees for f (x) and g(y), namely, 11, 13, 15, 21, and 31. (There are no
examples where deg f ≠ deg g.) The proof uses the classification of simple groups.”
 11. MIRACULOUS CANCELLATION 99

Although Professor Blakeley claimed to be disappointed about the lack of a

solution by the students, secretly he was quite pleased. The original proof of the
classification of finite simple groups involved about 15000 journal pages. Even
the streamlined second-generation proof (not yet complete) was estimated to be
5000 pages. The Professor did not relish reading through thousands of pages of a
purported solution, with the classification of finite simple groups as a lemma.
“While the result about factoring f (x) − g(y) is certainly interesting,” said
Professor Blakeley, “it is not nearly as important or useful as the tool used to solve
it, namely, the classification of finite simple groups. Can someone give another
good example of a large disparity between a result and the method used to prove
it? I want an example where no simpler proof is known.”
The question was somewhat vague, but after a short while Patrick said, “For
any positive integer n, there exists a prime number p with at least n consecutive
7’s in its decimal expansion. This follows immediately from Dirichlet’s theorem on
primes in arithmetic progression.”
“Could you explain further?”
“Dirichlet’s theorem says that for any relatively prime integers a, b, there are
infinitely many primes of the form ax + b, where x ∈ P. Simply take a = 10n and
b = 79 (10n − 1).”
“Not such a bad example. My favorite is the theorem that for any n ≥ 1 there
exists an n × n magic square of distinct prime numbers. By a magic square, I mean
that all rows, columns, and the two long diagonals have the same sum. Does anyone
see the easy proof, modulo a recent high-powered result?”
Jung Wook’s hand went up quickly. “Green-Tao!” he said. “By the Green-Tao
theorem there exists an arithmetic progression p1 , p2 , . . . , pn2 of (distinct) prime
numbers. It is well known that there exist n × n magic squares M using the distinct
integers 1, 2, . . . , n2 . Simply replace k by pk in M .”
“Good job!” said Professor Blakeley. “A good example of using a sledgehammer
to crack a walnut, though in this situation it might be the only tool available. So
who can write down such a magic square of size n = 5?”
No one volunteered, and the students suspected this was another of Professor
Blakeley’s impossible questions. Indeed, the Professor continued, “No volunteers?
The smallest example based on Jung Wook’s proof uses the arithmetic progression
(11.1) 6171054912832631 + 366384 ⋅ 223092870k, 0 ≤ k ≤ 24.
The factor 223092870 is a primorial number, i.e., the product of the first j primes
for some j. Here
223092870 = 2 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 7 ⋅ 11 ⋅ 13 ⋅ 17 ⋅ 19 ⋅ 23.
“However, there is a 5 × 5 prime magic square with line sum 313, namely,
⎡ 59 107 71 23 53 ⎤
⎢ ⎥
⎢ 13 37 113 61 89 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ 43 41 83 79 67 ⎥ . ”
⎢ ⎥
⎢ 101 19 17 103 73 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ 97 109 29 47 31 ⎥
⎣ ⎦
After the break Professor Blakeley changed the subject slightly. “The miracu-
lous cancellation necessary for the factorization of f (x)−g(y) reminds me of another
problem. Let f (x) ∈ C[x]. Can f (x)2 have fewer nonzero coefficients than f (x)?”
100 11. MIRACULOUS CANCELLATION

Since the Professor mentioned miraculous cancellation, most likely the answer
was affirmative. Moreover, this was the unexpected answer mathematically, hence
the expected answer psychologically. However, the students had no idea how to find
an example. Experimenting with some small degree polynomials got them nowhere.
“Your intuition is accurate,” said Professor Blakeley. “There are no such poly-
nomials of degree less than twelve. An example of degree 12 is given by
(11.2) pα (x) = (125x6 + 50x5 − 10x4 + 4x3 − 2x2 + 2x + 1)(αx6 + 1).
This polynomial has 13 nonzero coefficients for α ≠ 0, −125. For eight values of
α ≠ 0, −125 (of which six are rational), including α = −110, pα (x)2 has precisely 12
nonzero coefficients. As a hint concerning where this polynomial came from, note
that
√
1 + 4x = 1 + 2x − 2x2 + 4x3 − 10x4 + . . . .
It is also known that there is a constant c > 0 such that for any n ≥ 1, there is a
real polynomial of degree n − 1 whose square has fewer than cn0.81071... terms.”
Professor Blakeley realized that he had yet to present a problem that day that
the students had a chance of solving on their own, not counting the factorization
of x2 − y 2 .
“Let’s switch gears and try a problem about adding integers. What could be
simpler? Let G be the abelian group of all infinite sequences (a1 , a2 , . . . ) of integers,
with the operation of componentwise addition. It is surprising that there are a lot
of interesting properties of this innocent-looking group.
“For a starter, let H be the subgroup of G generated by all unit vectors
en = (0, 0, . . . , 0, 1, 0, 0, . . . ), where the 1 is in the nth coordinate. Equivalently,
H consists of all elements of G with only finitely many nonzero terms. Is H a
direct summand of G, i.e., is there a subgroup K of G for which G = H ⊕ K? Any
thoughts?”
Clayton said, “Well, K would have to have the property that every element of
G differs in only finitely many terms from a unique element of K. Is there even a
subset of G with this property?”
Hands quickly shot up, and Sandra was selected. “If we assume the Axiom of
Choice, then there is no problem. In fact, for any subgroup B of any group A, there
is a subset S of A such that every element of A can be uniquely written as b + s,
where b ∈ B and s ∈ S. Simply choose an element from each left coset of B.”
“Good way to put it!” said Professor Blakeley. “You can assume the Axiom
of Choice for this problem, though actually it isn’t needed. Note that if we were
looking instead at infinite sequences of rational numbers, then the answer would be
affirmative, since any set of linearly independent elements of a vector space can be
extended to a basis, assuming the Axiom of Choice. So does working over Z rather
than Q make any difference?”
Now the answer didn’t seem so obvious. Sam seemed to have his hand slightly
raised, so Professor Blakeley asked him if he had an answer. “Consider the element
g = (2, 4, 8, . . . , 2n , . . . ) ∈ G.
In G/H we have for any n ≥ 1 that
g = (0, 0, . . . , 0, 2n , 2n+1 , 2n+2 , . . . )
= 2n (0, 0, . . . , 0, 1, 2, 4, . . . ).
 11. MIRACULOUS CANCELLATION 101

Thus in G/H, g is divisible by 2n for all n ≥ 1. Moreover, g ≠ (0, 0, . . . ) in G/K

since g differs from (0, 0, . . . ) in infinitely many elements. But the only element of
G that is divisible by 2n for all n ≥ 1 is the identity (0, 0, . . . ), so H cannot be a
direct summand.”
“Super! Note how Sam had to use some property of Z that could not be
carried over to Q. With what we know so far, the following problem shouldn’t be
too difficult. Show that every homomorphism f ∶ G → Z is determined uniquely by
its value on the en ’s. (Of course the operation on Z is addition.) Equivalently, if
f (en ) = 0 for all n, then f (w) = 0 for all w ∈ G.”
No one volunteered. Professor Blakeley was disappointed. He said, “Consider
also (3, 32 , 33 , . . . ).”
Soon some hands were raised, including Fumei’s. She said, “Let w =(a1 , a2 , . . . ).
Since 2n and 3n are relatively prime, for each n there are integers cn and dn for
which
an = 2n cn + 3n dn .
Let u = (2c1 , 22 c2 , 23 c3 , . . . ) and b = (3d1 , 32 d2 , 33 d3 , . . . ), so w = u + v. Assume that
f (en ) = 0 for all n. Then
f (u) = 2n (0, 0, . . . , 0, an+1 2n+1 , an+2 2n+2 , . . . ).
Thus f (u) is divisible by 2n for all n, so f (u) = 0. Similarly f (v) is divisible by 3n
for all n, so f (v) = 0. Thus f (w) = 0.”
“Very clever to use the fact that 2n and 3n are relatively prime! Can anyone
see why G is not a free abelian group, i.e., does not contain a subset S such that
every element of G can be written uniquely as a linear combination of elements of
S with finitely many nonzero coefficients?
“There are a number of ways to show this. One way is based on the result just
proved by Fumei.”
After a while Daniel was the first to raise his hand. “The group G is uncount-
able, while H is countable. Thus if G is free, it is a direct sum of uncountably many
groups Zα ≅ Z, where α ranges over some uncountable index set I. If g ∈ G, then
define the support supp(g) of g to be the set of α ∈ I such that the α-coordinate
of g (that is, the projection of g to Zα ) is nonzero. Since H is countable, the set
X = ⋃h∈H supp(h) is countable. Thus we can find a homomorphism ψ∶ G → Z that
vanishes on H but is nonzero on Zβ for β ∈/ X. This contradicts the result proved
by Fumei.”
“A clever argument! I have one further problem about the group G that I have
put on today’s problem set: prove that every homomorphism ψ∶ G → Z vanishes on
all but finitely many ei .
“Oops, I seem to have gone ten minutes overtime. You all must be starving, so
that wraps up this morning’s class.”
 CHAPTER 12

Probability Theory

PROBLEM LIST

Strategy for guessing which of two numbers is larger 104

Expected number of increasing subsequences of length k of a random
permutation w ∈ Sn 104
Expected least value of k for which x1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xk > 1 105
Probability that x1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xk ≤ 1 105
Limiting probability that when tossing a generalized die, at some point
the sum of the numbers will be n 106
Probability that xi + xi+1 ≤ 1 for 1 ≤ i ≤ n − 1 107
Asymptotic formula for the Euler number En 109
Alternating permutations are counted by En 109
Permutations a1 a2 ⋯adn ∈ Sdn such that ai > ai+1 if and only if d∣i 110
Direct connection between alternating permutations and probability
that xi + xi+1 ≤ 1 110
Probability that x1 + x2 + x3 ≤ 1, x3 + x4 + x5 ≤ 1, etc. 111
Probability that xi + xi+1 + xi+2 ≤ 1 for 1 ≤ i ≤ n − 2 111
Alternating fixed-point free involutions 112
Combinatorial proof that sec2 x = 1 + tan2 x 112
Combinatorial proof that tan(x + y) = (tan x + tan y)/(1 − (tan x)(tan y)) 112

103
104 12. PROBABILITY THEORY

After a weekend of rest, relaxation, and working on math problems, the class
reconvened on Monday. Professor Blakeley began, “Today we’ll concentrate mostly
on probability theory. This is a vast subject, but most of it is unsuitable for com-
petitive problem solving. I’ve picked a few problems that illustrate some interesting
aspects of elementary probability theory. We already saw some examples1 involving
hidden independence and uniformity.
“To begin, Bob writes an integer on a piece of paper and a different integer on
another piece, and puts the two pieces into a hat. Alice reaches into the hat, pulls
out one of the pieces of paper, seeing an integer n. She then guesses whether n is
larger or smaller than the number on the other piece of paper. Does Alice have a
strategy that gives her a probability of success of greater than 50%? We assume
that Alice knows nothing of Bob’s psychology for choosing numbers.”
“No way!” said Daniel, and the other students nodded in agreement. “The
number on the other piece is just as likely to be smaller than larger.”
“Your reasoning about the number on the other side is impeccable,” said Pro-
fessor Blakeley, “but why does that imply that Alice cannot improve on a random
guessing strategy?”
At first no one volunteered. Could Alice really do better than 50%? Then Jung
Wook said, “I think I once saw a problem about a game where one player’s strategy
involves simulating a move of the other player. Maybe the present problem is of
this nature.”
“Not a bad idea! Here’s how it actually works. Alice chooses any probability
distribution on Z for which every integer has a positive probability. She then chooses
a ‘threshold’ t by choosing an integer from her distribution and adding 1/2 to it. If
n > t, she then guesses that n is larger than the other number; otherwise smaller.
“Who can tell me why this works?”
Among the volunteers, Emiliano was given the honor to explain. “If t is larger
than both of Bob’s numbers or smaller than both of Bob’s numbers, then Alice will
be correct 50% of the time. But if t is between the two numbers, then Alice will
always be right. There is a positive probability p for this to happen, so altogether
Alice will be right with probability 12 + p.”
“Right you are! Very counterintuitive! On the other hand, one can show that
for any ε > 0, there is no strategy for Alice that guarantees a probability of success
exceeding 12 + ε.
“Okay, let’s switch gears and look a little at the concept of expectation. I’ll
consider a couple of probability distributions on the positive integers. Just to review
the definition, suppose that the probability of n ∈ P is pn . Let f be a function on
P with values in Z, say. Then the expectation of f is the sum
E(f ) ∶= ∑ f (n)pn .
n≥1

The nicest property of expectation is that it is additive: E(f + g) = E(f ) + E(g).

For a warm up, recall that an increasing subsequence of a permutation a1 a2 ⋯an of
[n] (or more generally, of any sequence of integers) is a sequence ai1 < ai2 < ⋯ < aik
such that 1 ≤ i1 < i2 < ⋯ < ik ≤ n. What is the expected number of increasing
subsequences of length k (where 1 ≤ k ≤ n) of a random permutation (uniform
distribution) w ∈ Sn ?”

1
Chapters 7 and 8
 12. PROBABILITY THEORY 105

This was quite an easy problem, and hands went up quickly. Professor Blakeley
pointed to Sandra. “There are (nk) subsequences of w of length k. The probability
that a given one of them is increasing is 1/k!, so the expected number is (nk)/k!.”
“Exactly! By the additivity of expectation, it doesn’t matter that the proba-
bility that some given subsequence of length k is increasing is not independent of
the probability that some other given subsequence of length k is increasing. For
instance, the probabilty that a1 < a2 < a3 and a3 < a4 < a5 is not 1/3!2 , which is
what we would get if they were independent, but rather 1/5!.
“Okay, let’s try something a little more difficult, but still rather simple. Suppose
we choose a sequence x1 , x2 , . . . of real numbers independently and uniformly from
the interval [0, 1]. What is the expected least value of k for which x1 +x2 +⋅ ⋅ ⋅+xk > 1?
As usual, please don’t volunteer if you have seen this classic problem before.”
No one volunteered. Hmm, thought Professor Blakeley, this must be a very
popular problem in problem-solving circles. “In that case,” he said, “would someone
who already knows this problem like to explain?”
Fumei volunteered. “The probability that x1 + x2 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xk < 1 is 1/k!. Let pi
be the probability that i is the least integer for which x1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xi > 1. Thus
1
pk = (1 − ) − p1 − p2 − ⋯ − pk−1 .
k!
The solution is pk = (k − 1)/k!. By definition of expectation, the expected value of
k is
k−1 1
∑k⋅ =∑ = e. ”
k≥1 k! k≥0 k!
“Right you are, but perhaps there’s a more elegant way to get this answer.”
Patrick was the first to raise his hand. “For any probability distribution r on
P let r≥k = rk + rk+1 + . . . . Then the expected value of r is
E(r) = ∑ iri = ∑ r≥i .
i≥1 i≥1
For the current problem, p≥i is the probability that x1 + x2 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xi−1 ≤ 1, which is
1/(i − 1)!. Thus
1
E(p) = ∑ = e.”
i≥1 (i − 1)!
“Very good explanation! And why is the probability that x1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xk ≤ 1 equal
to 1/k!?”
Among the many volunteers, Clayton was selected. “The volume of a simplex
(the convex hull of affinely independent points) in Rk with one vertex at the origin
and other vertices v1 , . . . , vk is the absolute value of the determinant of the matrix
whose rows are v1 , . . . , vk , divided by k!. The region in Rk defined by xi ≥ 0 and
x1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xk ≤ 1 is a simplex whose vertices are the origin and the k unit coordinate
vectors. Thus the volume is 1/k! times the determinant of the identity matrix.”
“Correct, though there is a more elegant way to see this. Let yi = x1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xi .
The condition xi ≥ 0 and x1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xk ≤ 1 is equivalent to
(12.1) 0 ≤ y1 ≤ y2 ≤ ⋯ ≤ yk ≤ 1.
If we choose any k points 0 ≤ yi ≤ 1, then the probability that 0 ≤ y1 ≤ y2 ≤ ⋯ ≤ yk ≤ 1
is 1/k! (since all orderings of the yi ’s are equally likely). The linear transformation
between the x’s and y’s has determinant 1, so it preserves volume, and the proof
follows.
106 12. PROBABILITY THEORY

“Time to leave the subject of expectation. Here is a problem that appeared on

the 1960 Putnam and is somewhat similar to the one we just considered. Let n ≥ 1.
Toss a die (which has six equally likely faces labelled 1,2,3,4,5,6) repeatedly. Let
pn be the probability that after some number of tosses, the sum of the numbers we
have seen is equal to n. For instance, p1 = 1/6 and p2 = 16 + 36 1
. The problem is to
find limn→∞ pn . We might as well generalize the problem as follows: let a be any
probability distribution on P with finite support, that is, ai = 0 for all but finitely
many i. Successively choose independent integers n1 , n2 , . . . from the distribution
a, that is, we choose i with probability ai . Let pn be the probability that for some
k we have n1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + nk = n. Find limn→∞ pn . You can assume that there does not
exist d > 1 such that if ai ≠ 0, then d∣i, since otherwise it is easy to see that lim pn
doesn’t exist. You can work together for a while.”
It seemed clear to the students that in order to solve this problem, they needed
to find some kind of manageable formula for pn itself, or at least a recurrence or
generating function for pn . They soon obtained the recurrence
n
(12.2) pn = ∑ aj pn−j , n > 0,
j=0

where a0 = 0 and p0 = 1, since we can obtain the sum n by first obtaining n − j

with probability pn−j , and then n in one further trial with probability aj . This
recurrence begged to be transformed into a generating function identity. Setting
P (x) = ∑i≥0 pi xi and A(x) = ∑i≥0 ai xi , the coefficient of xn in A(x)P (x) is just the
right-hand side of equation (12.2). Therefore multiplying both sides of (12.2) by
xn and summing on n ≥ 0 gave
P (x) = A(x)P (x),
so A(x) = 1 or P (x) = 0. Either alternative seemed unlikely. The students quickly
realized that they forgot to take into account that the recurrence (12.2) fails for
n = 0. Adjusting for this value gave
P (x) = A(x)P (x) + 1,
so
1
P (x) = .
1 − A(x)
How to obtain limn→∞ pn from this formula?
It didn’t take long for Sam to see the light, as was evident from his excited
appearance. The other students asked him to explain.
“Clearly the polynomial B(x) = 1 − A(x) satisfies B(1) = 0. I claim that every
other complex zero α of B(x) satisfies ∣α∣ > 1. Every coefficient of P (x) is at most
1, so P (x) has radius of convergence at least 1. Therefore B(x) cannot have a zero
of absolute value less than 1.
“Suppose that B(α) = 0 and ∣α∣ = 1. We are assuming that for any d > 1 there
is some i for which ai ≠ 0 and d ∤ i. Hence either α = 1 or there is some aj ≠ 0
for which αj ≠ 1. Since ∑ ai = 1 and ai ≥ 0, the triangle inequality (including
the condition for equality) implies that the only way for ∑ aj αj = 1 is for α = 1.
Therefore B(α) ≠ 0 for ∣α∣ = 1 except when α = 1, so every complex zero α ≠ 1 of
B(x) must satisfy ∣α∣ > 1. Moreover, the zero α = 1 of B(x) has multiplicity one,
since otherwise the coefficients of P (x) would be unbounded.
 12. PROBABILITY THEORY 107

“Let L = 1/ ∑ jaj . Since L ≠ 0, by l’Hôpital’s rule we can compute that

L
+ B(x),
P (x) =
1−x
where B(x) has radius of convergence greater than 1. Hence if B(x) = ∑ bn xn , then
limn→∞ bn = 0, so
1
lim pn = L = .
n→∞ ∑ jaj
For a1 = ⋯ = a6 = 16 we get L = 2/7.”
Wow!, thought all the other students together with Professor Blakeley, who
said, “Very impressive! The same result is actually true for any probability distri-
bution a on P, but it is quite a bit harder to prove. Especially troublesome is the
case when ∑ jaj = ∞, an example being aj = 6/(π 2 j 2 ).
“Another problem for today, which is related to all sorts of goodies. Choose
x1 , . . . , xn independently and uniformly from the interval [0, 1]. What is the prob-
ability Pn that xi + xi+1 ≤ 1 for 1 ≤ i ≤ n − 1?
“I don’t expect an instantaneous solution, but any ideas?”
Patrick said, “It’s easy to express the answer as a horrendous multiple integral,
but I don’t see what that gets you.”
“What is the integral?”
Patrick went to the board and wrote
1 1−x1 1−x2 1−xn−1
Pn = ∫ ∫ ∫ ⋯∫ dxn dxn−1 ⋯dx1 .
x1 =0 x2 =0 x3 =0 xn =0

“Yes, this formula is immediate from the definition of Pn . Is it really hopeless

to get anywhere with it?” asked Professor Blakeley.
“We could try to evaluate it one integral at a time,” suggested Daniel. “Thus
1 1−x1 1−x2 1−xn−2
Pn = ∫ ∫ ∫ ⋯∫ (1 − xn−1 )dxn−1 dxn−2 ⋯dx1
x1 =0 x2 =0 x3 =0 xn−1 =0
1 1−x1 1−x2 1−xn−3
1
= ∫ ∫ ∫ (1 − xn−2 − (1 − xn−2 )2 ) dxn−2 dxn−3 ⋯dx1 ,
⋯∫
x1 =0 x2 =0 x3 =0 xn−2 =0 2
etc. Maybe we can find a formula for each step, which we can prove by induction.
It looks really messy.”
“Right you are about the messiness. I don’t know whether this can be made
to work, but there is a simpler approach.”
After getting no response other than blank stares, Professor Blakeley gave a
hint. “Let’s generalize the problem to
t 1−x1 1−x2 1−xn−1
Pn (t) = ∫ ∫ ∫ ⋯∫ dxn dxn−1 ⋯dx1 ,
x1 =0 x2 =0 x3 =0 xn =0

where t is any real number. What to do?”

Soon Jung Wook said, “Differentiate!”
“Differentiate? Maybe this isn’t a bad idea. What do we get?”
Jung Wook wrote on the board:

1−t 1−x2 1−xn−1

Pn′ (t) = ∫ ∫ ⋯∫ dxn dxn−1 ⋯dx2
x2 =0 x3 =0 xn =0

= Pn−1 (1 − t).
108 12. PROBABILITY THEORY

“A simple but somewhat nonstandard recurrence,” said Professor Blakeley.

“How to make further progress?”
Sandra suggested, “If we differentiate again, we get rid of the 1 − t. We get
(12.3) Pn′′ (t) = −Pn−2 (t). ”
′′
“This looks similar to y = −y, so maybe trig functions are involved,” said
Fumei.
“Not a bad insight,” said the Professor. “But how do we actually solve the
recurrence (12.3)? We need some way to handle all the Pn (t)’s at once.”
Numerous hands shot up including that of Clayton, who blurted, “Generating
functions!”
“Exactly! Patrick, since you wrote down the original integral in the first place,
why don’t you come up and try to get the generating function approach to work?”
Patrick was happy for this opportunity. He said, “Let
F (x, t) = ∑ Pn (t)xn .
n≥0

Differentiating twice with respect to t gives

∂2 ′′
F (x, t) = ∑ Pn (t)x
n
∂t2 n≥0
= − ∑ Pn−2 (t)xn
n≥0

= −x F (x, t).
2

The variable x is never differentiated, so we can treat it like a constant. Thus the
general solution to this equation is
F (x, t) = A(x) sin xt + B(x) cos xt. ”
Taking into account the initial condition F (x, 0) = 1 and realizing that one
needed to set t = 1 at the end, the students with some assistance from Professor
Blakeley expressed the solution in the optimal form
F (x, t) = (sec x)(cos(t − 1)x + sin tx).
Setting t = 1 gives the generating function
∑ Pn x = sec x + tan x.
n
n≥0

“A very elegant trigonometric generating function!” said Professor Blakeley.

“Probably some of you have encountered it before, but let me say a few words for
the benefit of the others. If we write
xn
sec x + tan x = ∑ En ,
n≥0 n!
then the numbers En are called Euler numbers because Euler was interested in the
coefficients of sec x in connection with his work on summing series like ∑n≥1 n−2d for
d ∈ P. There is no nice formula for En , but in 1879 Désiré André gave them a very
elegant combinatorial interpretation. Namely, En is the number of permutations
w = a1 ⋯an ∈ Sn satisfying
a1 > a2 < a3 > a4 < a5 > ⋯.
 12. PROBABILITY THEORY 109

The inequality signs alternate between > and <, so such permutations are called
alternating permutations. For instance, the alternating permutations in S4 are
2143, 3142, 3241, 4132, and 4231, so E4 = 5. Note that sec x is an even function
of x, i.e., sec(−x) = sec x, so it has only even exponents in its Taylor expansion at
x = 0. Similarly tan x has only odd exponents. Therefore E2n is sometimes called
a secant number and E2n+1 a tangent number.
“For those who know a little complex variable theory, the analytic function
sec x + tan x has a simple pole at x = π/2, and no other singularity of smaller or
equal absolute value. The Laurent expansion at π/2 looks like
4/π 4 2 n n
sec x + tan x = + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ = ∑ ( ) x + ⋯,
1 − 2x
π
π n≥0 π
which gives the asymptotic formula
En 2 n+1
Pn ∶= ∼ 2( ) .
n! π
For instance, P10 = 0.01392223 . . . , while 2(2/π)11 = 0.01392231 . . . .
“Okay, let’s take a little break, after which we can think about why En is
the number of alternating permutations in Sn . No fair looking this up on your
phones/computers during the break.”
Some of the students had seen alternating permutations before and were able
to reconstruct a proof that if An is the number of alternating permutations in Sn ,
then
xn
∑ An = sec x + tan x.
n≥0 n!
Namely, first define a permutation a1 a2 ⋯an ∈ Sn to be reverse alternating if a1 <
a2 > a3 < a4 > a5 < ⋯. The transformation ai → an+1−i shows that the number of
reverse alternating permutations in Sn is also equal to An . Now let w = a1 a2 ⋯an+1
be an alternating or reverse alternating permutation in Sn+1 . Suppose that aj+1 =
n + 1. Then aj aj−1 ⋯a1 is a reverse alternating permutation u of some j-element
subset S of [n], while aj+2 aj+3 ⋯an+1 is a reverse alternating permutation v of the
complementary subset [n]−S. Every alternating or reverse alternating permutation
can be obtained uniquely in this way. There are (nj) choices for S, Aj choices for
u, and An−j choices for v. When n ≥ 1, the number of permutations in Sn+1 that
are alternating or reverse alternating is 2An+1 . Hence we obtain the recurrence
n
n
(12.4) 2An+1 = ∑ ( )Aj An−j , n ≥ 1.
j=0 j
n n
Let y = ∑n≥0 An xn! . Multiply equation (12.4) by xn! and sum on n ≥ 0. In general,
n n
if z = ∑ Cn xn! , then z ′ = ∑n≥0 Cn+1 xn! , where z ′ denotes the formal derivative
(differentiate term-by-term). Taking into account the initial conditions and the
failure of the recurrence for n = 0, we get the differential equation
2y ′ = y 2 + 1, y(0) = 1.
The unique solution is y = sec x + tan x, and the proof follows.
“Good job!” said Professor Blakeley. “This is a standard ‘Combinatorics
101’ example of the use of generating functions to solve recurrences. While fairly
straightforward, it does have the defect of not explaining why we got such a simple
110 12. PROBABILITY THEORY

answer. There is a more illuminating proof based on an inclusion-exclusion argu-

ment. I will give the argument for sec x, that is, alternating permutations in S2n .
The argument for tan x is similar but a bit more tricky.
“Let Sk be the set of permutations w = a1 a2 ⋯a2n ∈ S2n satisfying
a1 > a2 < a3 > a4 < ⋯ > a2n−2k , a2n−2k+1 > a2n−2k+2 > ⋯ > a2n ,
and let Tk be those permutations in Sk that also satisfy a2n−2k > a2n−2k+1 . Hence
S1 − T1 consists of all alternating permutations in Sn . Moreover, Ti = Si+1 − Ti+1 .
Hence
An = #(S1 − T1 ) = #S1 − #(S2 − T2 ) = ⋯ = #S1 − #S2 + #S3 − ⋯.
A permutation in Sk is obtained by choosing a2n−2k+1 , a2n−2k+2 , . . . , a2n in (2n
2k
) ways
and then a1 , a2 , . . . , a2n−2k in A2(n−k) ways. Hence #Sk = (2n
2k
)A 2(n−k) . Therefore
we get the recurrence
2n 2n 2n
A2n = ( )A2n−2 − ( )A2n−4 + ( )A2n−6 − ⋯.
2 4 6
This is precisely the recurrence we get for E2n (rather than A2n ) by equating
coefficients of x2n /(2n)! on both sides of
x2n
1 = ( ∑ E2n ) ⋅ cos x
n≥0 (2n)!
x2n x2 x4
= ( ∑ E2n ) (1 − + − ⋯) ,
n≥0 (2n)! 2! 4!
so
x2n 1
∑ A2n = = sec x,
n≥0 (2n)! cos x
as desired.
“To see further that this is a better proof, for d ≥ 1 let fd (n) be the number of
permutations a1 a2 ⋯an ∈ Sn such that ai < ai+1 if and only if d∣i. The case d = 2
gives alternating permutations. Then it is easy to show in complete analogy with
the previous inclusion-exclusion argument that
xdn 1
∑ fd (dn) = .
n≥0 (dn)! xdn
∑ (−1)
n
n≥0 (dn)!
This generalization makes it much more clear why we obtained sec x as the gener-
ating function for alternating permutations in S2n . I will leave you to figure out
xdn+r
for 1 ≤ r ≤ d − 1 the formula for ∑n≥0 fd (dn + r) (dn+r)! .
“I am not quite done yet! We found a connection between the probabilities
Pn and the Euler numbers En , as well as a connection between the Euler numbers
and alternating permutations. Let’s try to complete the circle by finding a direct
connection between Pn and alternating permutations. As a hint, recall the linear
change of variables yi = x1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xi that we used to find the probability that
x1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xk ≤ 1.”
The first idea to come to mind was to use the same change of variables on
the equations xi ≥ 0 and xi + xi+1 ≤ 1, but that did not seem to work. Emiliano
was the first to see the light and was asked to explain. “Make the substitution
x2i+1 = 1 − y2i+1 and x2i = y2i . This is an affine transformation whose determinant
 12. PROBABILITY THEORY 111

is ±1, so the volume is preserved. The conditions xi ≥ 0 and xi + xi+1 ≤ 1 become

0 ≤ yi ≤ 1 and

(12.5) y1 ≥ y2 ≤ y3 ≥ y4 ≤ y5 ≥ y6 ≤ ⋯.

Since all n! orderings of the yi ’s are equally likely, the probability that equa-
tion (12.5) holds is just An /n!.”
“So elegant! Much more can be said about alternating permutations. Indeed,
if I weren’t so lazy I could write a whole book about them. But let me mention
a nice generalization of finding the probability that xi + xi+1 ≤ 1 that I have put
on today’s problem set. I’ll just state a special case for the sake of simplicity, but
you should be able to figure out a generalization. Let n ≥ 1. Choose x1 , . . . , xn
independently and uniformly from the interval [0, 1]. Let Pn be the probability
that

x1 + x2 + x3 ≤ 1
(12.6) x3 + x4 + x5 ≤ 1.
x5 + x6 + x7 ≤ 1
⋮

The final inequality has two or three terms on the left, depending on whether n is
even or odd. Show that n!Pn is equal to the number of permutations w = w1 ⋯wn ∈
Sn such that
w1 > w2 > w3
w3 < w4 < w5
w5 > w6 > w7 .
w7 < w8 < w9
⋮

You’ll see that Emiliano’s elegant change of variables no longer works. You’ll have
to be a little more clever.
“By the way, consider the probability that if we choose x1 , . . . , xn independently
and uniformly from the interval [0, 1] as before, then xi + xi+1 + xi+2 ≤ 1 for all
1 ≤ i ≤ n − 2. Though superficially similar to the previous problem, no nice answer
is known.
“Let me finish off with one very challenging problem which I have put on today’s
problem set. Let E be an indeterminate. Consider the power series
2
1 + x (E +1)/4
G(x) = ( ) .
1−x
We can write this as

2x (E +1)/4
2

G(x) = (1 + )
1−x
(E 2 + 1)/4 2x n
= ∑( )( ) ,
n≥0 n 1−x
112 12. PROBABILITY THEORY

from which it is clear that G(x) = ∑n≥0 pn (E)xn , where pn (E) is a polynomial in
E. For instance,
1 2
p1 (E) = (E + 1),
2
1 4
p2 (E) = (E + 2E 2 + 1),
8
1
p3 (E) = (E 6 + 3E 4 + 11E 2 + 9),
48
1
p4 (E) = (E 8 + 4E 6 + 38E 4 + 68E 2 + 33).
384
Now in pn (E) do the curious operation of turning each exponent into a subscript,
so E k becomes the Euler number Ek . Call the resulting number f (n). For instance,
1
f (3) = (E6 + 3E4 + 11E2 + 9)
48
1
= (61 + 3 ⋅ 5 + 11 ⋅ 1 + 9)
48
= 2.
The problem is to show that f (n) is the number of alternating permutations in S2n
that are fixed-point-free involutions, that is, all their cycles (in their decomposition
into a product of disjoint cycles) have length two. For instance, when n = 3 we have
the two permutations 214365 and 645231.
“Who can see how to do this?”
The students of course did not take this question seriously. Professor Blakeley
as usual feigned disappointment and then said, “Just one more item before we can
go to lunch. Now that we have a combinatorial interpretation of sec x and tan x in
terms of alternating permutations, we can simply define
x2n
sec x ∶= ∑ A2n ,
n≥0 (2n)!
x2n+1
tan x ∶= ∑ A2n+1 .
n≥0 (2n + 1)!
All the other trig functions can be defined in terms of these, e.g.,
sin x = (tan x)/(sec x).
We can develop the theory of trigonometry from these definitions. This is the
subject of combinatorial trigonometry. For instance, today’s problem set asks for
combinatorial proofs that
sec2 x = 1 + tan2 x
and
tan x + tan y
tan(x + y) = .
1 − (tan x)(tan y)

“I have searched through numerous textbooks on trigonometry, but none take

this elegant combinatorial approach. It does have the slight defect that the trig
functions are no longer functions, but rather formal power series. Thus you lose
all connections with angles, triangles, periodicity, harmonic motion, etc., but you
 12. PROBABILITY THEORY 113

can’t have everything. In return you have a chance to develop a lot of properties
of alternating permutations.”
The students hoped that Professor Blakeley wouldn’t get the idea of writing
a trigonometry textbook based on alternating permutations, since they had some
doubts about its marketability.
 CHAPTER 13

Geometry

PROBLEM LIST

Do there exist uncountably many disjoint subsets of R2 homeomorphic

to two tangent circles? 116
Do there exist uncountably many disjoint subsets of R2 homeomorphic
to the letter Y? 116
Can a convex n-gon be tiled with nonconvex quadrilaterals? 116
For what n do there exist nonregular equiangular n-gons with integer sides? 116
Polynomials P (x) ∈ R[x] such that some P (x)Q(x) has nonnegative
coefficients 118
Is there an equilateral triangle in R2 with integer vertices? 118
When is there a regular n-simplex in Rn with integer vertices? 118
When are there n + 1 vertices of an n-cube whose convex hull is a regular
simplex? 119
Well-centered regular simplex in a cube 120
Line dividing 2n points in the plane in half 120
Line through two points dividing the remaining 2(n − 1) points in half 120
Maximum number of halving lines 121
Circle through three points with half the remaining points inside 121
Number of halving circles 121
Rectangle tiled with rectangles with at least one side of integer length 121
Can a 10 × 15 rectangle be tiled with 1 × 6 rectangles? 122
Tiling an a × b rectangle (a, b ∈ R>0 ) with finitely many squares 123
Tiling a triangular region of hexagons with tribones 123
Tiling a square with rectangles similar to a 1 × x rectangle 125
Tiling a rectangle with copies of a certain polyomino 127
Smallest rectangle that can be tiled with a given polyomino 127

115
116 13. GEOMETRY

When class began the next day, Professor Blakeley was his usual excited self.
“Today let’s see what you know about geometry! The first problem is pretty easy.
Can we find uncountably many pairwise disjoint subsets of R2 , each homeomorphic
to two circles with one point in common? We may or may not have one of the two
circles contained in the other. If you’re not familiar with homeomorphisms, you can
think of two simple closed (continuous) curves with one point in common. ‘Simple’
means that the curves are not self-intersecting.”
A few students were familiar with this problem and generously did not vol-
unteer. Among the remaining students, the first to volunteer was Clayton. “Let
me call the allowed subsets 2-circles. Given a 2-circle T , choose a pair {uT , vT } of
points with rational coordinates, such that uT lies inside both circles and vT lies
inside just one of them (when one closed curve is contained inside the other), or
uT lies inside one circle and vT inside the other (when the two closed curves have
disjoint interiors). Clearly if {uS , vS } = {uT , vT }, then S = T . Since there are only
countably many vectors (u, v) ∈ Q2 , it follows that we can’t have uncountably many
pairwise disjoint 2-circles.”
“Very nice! I’ll let you get away with assuming that every simple closed curve
in R2 has an interior (the Jordan curve theorem). For a somewhat more onerous
variation which is on the problem set, can we find uncountably many pairwise
disjoint subsets of R2 , each homeomorphic to the letter Y, that is, three closed line
segments with an endpoint in common?
“Time for another, just a little more challenging! Can a convex n-gon C in the
plane be tiled with finitely many nonconvex quadrilaterals? Thus the quadrilaterals
have disjoint interiors, and their union (including their interiors) is C.”
After a few minutes of trying to find a tiling without success, the students began
to feel that the answer was negative. “Could we have a hint?” asked Patrick.
“A hint? So sad. Okay then, consider angles,” said the Professor.
Not much of a hint, but Daniel was first to understand its significance. “The
sum of the interior angles of each quadrilateral is 2π. Each quadrilateral has ex-
actly one interior vertex, that is, a vertex in the convex hull of the other three
vertices. The sum of the angles around each interior vertex is also 2π. If there are
q quadrilaterals, then the sum of the angles around all their interior vertices is 2πq.
This doesn’t leave any angles available for the boundary of the n-gon, so a tiling is
impossible.”
“Good proof! Note that we can tile a triangle with one nonconvex quadrilateral
and one nonconvex pentagon, so we really need to use the fact that the tiles are all
(nonconvex) quadrilaterals.
“Okay, let’s try another geometry problem! For what integers n ≥ 3 do there ex-
ist equiangular n-gons in the plane which are not regular (that is, not all edges have
the same length, given equiangularity) and whose edges all have integer lengths?
Any first thoughts?”
A few hands went up, and the Professor selected Fumei. “It’s easy to do n = 3
and n = 4. Any equiangular triangle is regular, and of course there are rectangles
which are not squares and which have integer edge lengths.”
“A good first step, since it shows that there is a true dichotomy. Now what?
What about n = 5?”
After a short while Professor Blakeley gave a hint. “Think fifth roots of unity.”
 13. GEOMETRY 117

It didn’t take long before there were some volunteers, the first being Sam, so
he was chosen. The other students were no longer surprised when Sam volunteered.
“Let ζ = e2πi/5 , a primitive fifth root of unity. If a0 , . . . , a4 > 0, then the condition
for them being the side lengths, in that order, of an equiangular pentagon is
4
∑ ak ζ = 0.
k

k=0

But the polynomial 1 + x + x + x + x4 is irreducible over Q and its zeros are ζ k ,

2 3

0 ≤ k ≤ 4. Thus the only rational linear combinations of the ζ k ’s that equal 0 are
of the form
a(1 + ζ + ζ 2 + ζ 3 + ζ 4 ) = 0, a ∈ Q.
Hence all the ak ’s are equal. The same reasoning works when n is any odd prime,
since 1 + x + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xp−1 is irreducible over Q.”
“Exactly!” said Professor Blakeley. “A little simple algebra goes a long way.
Note that we need not assume that our polygon is convex or even non-self-
intersecting. I hope you all remember why the polynomial Φp (x) = 1 + x + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xp−1
is irreducible over Q when p is prime. The simplest proof is to apply the Eisenstein
irreducibility criterion to Φp (1 + x).
“Now what about composite n > 4?”
Jung Wook said, “Sam’s reasoning shows that if the side lengths are a0 , . . . , an−1
in that order, then the polynomial P (x) = ∑n−1 k
k=0 ak x must be divisible by the
cyclotomic polynomial Φn (x).”
“Yes, and I remind you that Φn (x) is defined to be the monic polynomial over
Q of least degree that has e2πi/n as a zero. The degree of Φn (x) is the Euler phi
function value φ(n), and the zeros of Φn (x) are the primitive nth roots of unity
e2πdi/n , where 1 ≤ d ≤ n, and d and n are relatively prime.
“If we allow nonpositive edge lengths, i.e., after drawing an edge and turning
an angle 2π/n, we proceed in the opposite direction to which we are facing, then
there is no problem. We can let P (x) be any polynomial of degree n − 1 except
a(1 + x + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xn−1 ) that is divisible by Φn (x). We can also easily arrange for all
coefficients of P (x) to be nonzero, in case you don’t like sides of length 0. But
what if you want all side lengths to be positive?”
Patrick was chosen. “Define Γn (x) by
1 − xn
= Φn (x)Γn (x).
1−x
Then perturb the coefficients of Γn (x) slightly, keeping them rational, getting Γ̂(x).
We can then multiply Φn (x)Γ̂(x) by a common denominator of its coefficients to
get a polynomial with positive integer coefficients that are the side lengths of our
polygon.”
“Not bad, but can we think more geometrically?”
Soon Jung Wook had his hand in the air. “If n = ab, where a, b > 1, then just
take a regular n-gon with sides of length one, say, and stretch every ath side (so b
sides are stretched in all) to the same longer integer length.”
“Okeydokey! Just like stretching a square to a rectangle. That seems to settle
our polygon problem. Before going on to the next problem, here is a somewhat
related problem you can mull over. Let P (x) ∈ R[x]. Show that there exists
0 ≠ Q(x) ∈ R[x] such that every coefficient of P (x)Q(x) is nonnegative if and
118 13. GEOMETRY

only if P (x) has no positive real zeros. By the way, the corresponding question for
polynomials in several variables is much more subtle. I think that it’s open whether
there exists an algorithm for deciding whether Q exists.
“Let’s continue with some more geometry. By a lattice point in Rn , I mean
a point with integer coordinates. As a warmup, does there exist an equilateral
triangle in R2 whose vertices are lattice points? How many have seen this well-
known problem before?”
Five hands went up, and Professor Blakeley asked Sandra to explain. “Suppose
such a triangle T exists with side length s. We can translate the triangle so one
vertex is at (0, 0) and the others at (a, b) and (c, d), say. Thus s2 = a2 + b2 ∈ Z. The
a b
area of the triangle is the absolute value of 12 det [ ], which is rational. On
c d
√
the other hand, the area is also 43 s2 , which is irrational, a contradiction. Therefore
T does not exist.”
“Excellent argument!” said Professor Blakeley. “Remember1 that if we have
an n-dimensional simplex σ in Rn whose vertices are the origin and v1 , . . . , vn , then
the n-dimensional volume of σ is 1/n! times the absolute value of the determinant
whose rows are v1 , . . . , vn .
“Now let’s try a challenging generalization. For what positive integers n do
there exist n + 1 lattice points in Rn such that any two of them are the same
distance apart, that is, the lattice points form the vertices of a regular simplex?
We just showed that n = 2 is not possible.”
“I can do n = 1,” said Clayton.
“Incredible! I won’t ask you to present the proof, but what about n = 3?”
Soon some hands went up. Professor Blakeley did not even bother to ask
someone to speak, but rather said, “Yes, this is quite easy—we can take the vertices
to be 000, 110, 101, 011, for instance. So let’s get more serious. Suppose that n is
even. Who can come up with a significant necessary condition for the simplex to
exist?”
Sam was the first to raise his hand. “We can generalize the argument for n = 2.
By the determinantal formula just mentioned by Professor Blakeley, the volume
of the simplex
√ is rational. If the side length is s, then one can compute that the
volume is n + 1sn /n!2n/2 . When n is even, then sn ∈ Z and 2n/2 ∈ Z. Thus we
must have that n + 1 is a perfect square in order for the volume to be rational.”
√ “Awesome! Everyone here should be able to check that the volume is indeed
n + 1sn /n!2n/2 . Is this necessary condition also sufficient for n even?”
After a short while Professor Blakeley continued, “We can try to find as simple
an example as possible. Perhaps we can take the n + 1 points to consist of the n
unit coordinate vectors together with a vector of the form (a, a, . . . , a).”
With√this huge hint it wasn’t difficult for the students to compute that taking
a = (1 − 1 + n)/n gave a regular simplex for any n. Clearly the last vertex is
rational when 1 + n is a square, and one can scale by a factor of n to get integer
vertices. Thus the proof was complete that when n is even, the integer simplex σ
exists if and only if n + 1 is a square.
“There remains the case where n is odd,” said Professor Blakeley. “This turns
out to be more of a challenge, involving some knowledge of the Hasse-Minkowski

1
Chapter 12
 13. GEOMETRY 119

theory of rational quadratic forms, so let me just tell you the answer. If n ≡
3 (mod 4), then it is always possible, while if n ≡ 1 (mod 4) the necessary and
sufficient condition is that n + 1 is the sum of two squares (of nonnegative integers).
I’m sure you must know that the condition for this is that if n + 1 = pa1 1 ⋯par r is the
factorization of n + 1 into prime powers, then ai is even whenever pi ≡ 3 (mod 4).
This goes back to Fermat and Euler.”
“Cool!” said Clayton. The other students agreed.
“Let’s look at one more problem of a similar nature before the break,” said the
Professor. “For what n ≥ 1 can we find n + 1 vertices of an n-dimensional cube that
form the vertices of a regular simplex σ? That is, every pair of distinct vertices are
the same distance apart. Any first thoughts?”
Fumei was the first to speak. “Clearly n = 1 is possible (and trivial), while
n = 2 is impossible. We already saw for n = 3 that we can take the vertices 000,
110, 101, 011. In fact, by what we just saw for regular simplices with any integer
vertices, n + 1 must be a perfect square when n is even, and must be a sum of two
squares when n ≡ 1 (mod 4).”
“Good start! Can anyone rule out the cases when n is even or n ≡ 1 (mod 4)
entirely, except for the trivial exception n = 1?”
Daniel was the first to volunteer. “We can assume that the vertices of the cube
are the 2n binary vectors of length n, and that one of the vertices is the origin.
Since all the other vertices v1 , . . . , vn have the same distance to the origin, they
√
have the same number of 1’s, say d. If i ≠ j, then vi and vj are at distance d
apart, so they have d/2 1’s in common. In particular, d is even.
“I claim that d = (n + 1)/2. Since σ is an n-dimensional simplex, the vectors
v1 , . . . , vn form a basis for Rn . Thus there are unique real numbers ai for which
a1 v1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + an vn = (1, 1, . . . , 1).
Take the dot product with vi to get
d d
(a1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + an ) + ai = d, 1 ≤ i ≤ n.
2 2
The unique solution is a1 = ⋯ = a n = 2/(n + 1). Thus
n+1
v1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + vn = (1, 1, . . . , 1).
2
Take the dot product with (1, 1, . . . , 1) to get dn = n(n+1) 2
, so d = (n + 1)/2 as
claimed. Since d is even, we must have n ≡ 3 (mod 4).”
“Excellent! So now we know that either n = 1 or n ≡ 3 (mod 4). Who can settle
the case n ≡ 3 (mod 4)?”
After a few minutes of futile attempts by the students, Professor Blakeley
continued, “Again I gave you a chance for fame and glory by solving a famous open
problem.”
By now the students had become used to being asked to solve quickly problems
which turn out to be open, so they did not react strongly to this latest pronounce-
ment.
“Let me explain further,” continued the Professor. “Let σ be a regular simplex
in Rm−1 (we’ll soon see why I work in m − 1 dimensions rather than n) whose
vertices v0 , v1 , . . . , vm−1 are binary vectors. As Daniel mentioned, we can assume
that v0 = (0, 0, . . . , 0). Let A be the (m − 1) × (m − 1) matrix whose rows are
v1 , . . . , vm−1 . Change the 1’s to −1’s and the 0’s to 1’s to get a new matrix B.
120 13. GEOMETRY

Then let C be the m × m matrix whose first row and column are all 1’s, and the
remaining submatrix of C is B. The condition that σ is regular becomes (using
Daniel’s result d = (n + 1)/2) the condition that any two distinct rows of C are
orthogonal. Equivalently, CC t = mI. An m × m matrix of 1’s and −1’s for which
any two distinct rows are orthogonal is called a Hadamard matrix. By multiplying
each row and each column of a Hadamard matrix by 1 or −1 as needed, we can
assume that the first row and column is all 1’s, called a bordered Hadamard matrix.
Conversely, given a bordered Hadamard matrix we can reverse the steps to obtain
σ. Thus Daniel’s argument shows that σ exists in Rm−1 if and only if m is the order
of a Hadamard matrix, and that a necessary condition is that m = 1 (not mentioned
by Daniel since we assumed n ≥ 1), m = 2, or m ≡ 0 (mod 4). It is a famous open
problem that these conditions are sufficient. The smallest m divisible by four for
which it is not known whether an m × m Hadamard matrix exists is m = 668.
“One final remark. Daniel’s formula v1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + vn = n+1 2
(1, 1, . . . , 1) can be
rewritten

(0, 0, . . . , 0) + v1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + vn 1
= (1, 1, . . . , 1).
n+1 2

In other words, the center of the simplex σ is the same as the center of the cube
in which it is inscribed. We can ask for an even stronger ‘well-centered’ property,
namely, every Euclidean automorphism of σ (of which there are (n + 1)!) extends
to an automorphism of the cube. On today’s problem set I ask you to find all n for
which this is possible. This is not such a difficult problem.
“Okay, break time! We’ll look at some more geometry problems after the
break.”
The break passed very quickly, and Professor Blakeley presented the next prob-
lem. “As a trivial warmup, given 2n points in the plane, show that there is a line
L that divides the points in half, that is, n of the points lie on one side of L and n
on the other side.
“No need to volunteer, since I’m sure you all can do this. Simply choose a line
M not parallel to any line through two of the points, and slide M in from infinity
always keeping its slope the same. Since M can cross at most one of the 2n points
at a time, at some time it will have crossed exactly n of the points.
“Now suppose that no three of the 2n points are collinear. Can we find a line
L through two of the points that divides the remaining 2(n − 1) points in half?”
Several hands quickly went up, and Patrick was selected. “Let L be a line
through two of the points, say p and q. If L is not already a halving line, then there
are fewer points a on one side of L than the b = 2(n − 1) − a points on the other side.
Now rotate L around the point p. Each time L passes through a point, the number
of points on each side changes by one, and after rotating 180○ the number of points
on the side originally containing a points now has b points. Thus sometime during
the rotation process L becomes a halving line.”
“Nice!” said Professor Blakeley. “Note that Patrick’s argument shows that
there are at least n halving lines, since there is a halving line through any of the 2n
points. If the points are in convex position (i.e., the vertices of a convex 2n-gon),
then equality is achieved—there are exactly n halving lines. Note that for four
points not in convex position (always assuming no three are collinear) we can do
better—there are three halving lines.
 13. GEOMETRY 121

“In general, the problem of finding the maximum number f (n) of halving lines
of a configuration of 2n points is open. The best results to date are
√
cne log n
< f (n) < c′ n4/3 ,
where c, c′ are positive real constants.
“Let’s consider an interesting variant—circles. Suppose we have a set S of 2n+1
points in the plane such that no three lie on a line and no four on a circle. We will
say that such a set is in general position. A halving circle is a circle through three
of the points, with n − 1 of the remaining points in its interior, so also n − 1 in its
exterior. The first question: do halving circles always exist?”
The students quickly saw that an argument similar to the halving line existence
also worked. Clayton explained, “Pick any two points p, q ∈ S. Consider all circles
through p, q that don’t intersect another point in S. One of these circles contains
all the points on one side of the line pq, and another circle contains all the points
on the other side. Thus one circle contains at least n points of S, and the other
at most n − 1 points of S. Continuously move the center O of the first circle in a
straight line toward the center O ′ of the second circle. By continuity, one of these
points between O and O ′ will be the center of a circle passing through p, q and
containing exactly n − 1 points of S in its interior.”
“Sounds good to me!” said Professor Blakeley. “So what can be said about the
number of halving circles, other than being positive?”
Since there was a halving circle passing through any two points p, q and by
necessity intersecting just one other point of S, it was clear to the students that
there were at least
1 2n(2n + 1) 1
⋅ = n(2n + 1)
3 2 3
halving circles. It was difficult to make further progress, one reason being that
checking examples seemed much more difficult than for halving lines.
“You are now in a position to appreciate an amazing result of Federico Ardila,”
said Professor Blakeley, “namely, there are always exactly n2 halving circles!”
This did seem to be quite a startling result. Why were circles so much more
nicely behaved than lines?
“I won’t give the details of the proof here, but the idea is as follows. First show
that the number of circles is invariant by continuously moving one set S of 2n + 1
points in general position into another, and analyzing what happens when the set
of three-element subsets of S whose elements lie on a halving circle changes. Once
we know that the number of halving circles is invariant, we can choose S suitably
so we can show that it has n2 halving circles. Ardila chooses S to consist of a slight
perturbation of the vertices of a regular (2n − 1)-gon with center O, together with
O and a point Q far away from the (2n − 1)-gon, chosen of course so that all 2n + 1
of the points are in general position. With these hints and sufficient time I think
you should be able to fill in the details.
“Let’s move on to our final topic for today—tiling rectangles with rectangles.
It is surprising that there are a number of cool results about such a simple tiling
situation. Let’s start with a classic: show that if a rectangle is tiled by finitely
many rectangles each of which has at least one side of integer length, then the tiled
rectangle has at least one side of integer length.”
Some of the students had seen this problem before, and Patrick was allowed to
explain. “We can assume for simplicity that the rectangle has vertices (0, 0), (a, 0),
122 13. GEOMETRY

(0, b), and (a, b). Let

a b
I = ∫ ∫ e2πi(x+y) dx dy
0 0
1
= (e2πia − 1)(e2πib − 1).
(2πi)2
The integral over each of the tiles is 0 since we get a factor e2πc − 1, where c is an
integer. Therefore I = 0, so at least one of a or b is an integer.”
“Good argument! This is probably the quickest and simplest proof for those
who have the background to understand it. Stan Wagon has assembled fourteen
different proofs, including Patrick’s. Note also that there is no problem in extending
this result to higher dimensions.
“A rather similar problem is the following: can a 10 × 15 rectangle be tiled by
1 × 6 rectangles (in any orientation)? Please volunteer only if you aren’t already
familiar with the theory of tiling a × b rectangles with c × d rectangles.”
The statement that the problem was rather similar to the previous one was a
big hint, and Emiliano was the first to raise a hand. “It is no more difficult to do
the general case of tiling an a × b rectangle R with c × d rectangles. Assume the
lower-left corner of R is (0, 0). For any rectangle S let
Γ(S) = ∑ xm y n ,
(m,n)

where (m, n) ranges over all integer points in S except those on the top edge and
right edge. Thus for any rectangle S in the tiling of R, say with bottom left vertex
(r, s), we have either
Γ(S) = xr y s (1 + x + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xc−1 )(1 + y + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + y d−1 )
or
Γ(S) = xr y s (1 + x + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xd−1 )(1 + y + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + y c−1 ).
Thus, setting Pab (x) = (1 + x + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xa−1 )(1 + y + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + y b−1 ), we have
Pab (x) = Γ(R)
= ∑ Γ(S)
S

(13.1) = ∑ x y (1 + x + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + x )(1 + y + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + y )
r s c−1 d−1

(13.2) + ∑ xr y s (1 + x + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xd−1 )(1 + y + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + y c−1 ),

where S ranges over all rectangles in the tiling of R. Now put x = y = e2πi/c . By
summing a geometric series it is clear that
p−1
= 0 if q∣p,
∑e
2πih/q
{
h=0
≠ 0 otherwise.
Thus the right-hand side of equation (13.2) vanishes. The left-hand side will vanish
if and only if c∣a or c∣b. Similarly we get that either d∣a or d∣b if a tiling exists. It is
easy to see that these necessary conditions are also sufficient, though necessity is all
we need to conclude that we cannot tile a 10 × 15 rectangle with 1 × 6 rectangles.”
“Any comment?” asked Professor Blakeley.
“I get the proof of the necessity that either c∣a or c∣b, and similarly either d∣a
or d∣b, but why is it sufficient?” said Sandra. “Sufficiency would mean we could
tile a 1 × 2 rectangle with 2 × 2 rectangles, which seems quite challenging.”
 13. GEOMETRY 123

“Good point!” said Professor Blakeley. “Clearly in order to cover just the
first row and the first column we need that both a and b are sums of c’s and d’s,
i.e., we can write a = uc + vd for u, v ∈ N, and similarly for b. It now really is
easy to check that with this added requirement we do indeed have a necessary and
sufficient condition. Note again that it is easy to generalize our result, originally
due to Nicolaas de Bruijn, to higher dimensions.
“Now I’d like to tell you about a problem rather similar to the previous ones,
but surprisingly more difficult. For any real numbers a, b > 0, show that an a × b
rectangle can be tiled by finitely many squares if and only if a/b ∈ Q. Here is an
especially elegant proof using some simple linear algebra.
“Consider an a × b rectangle R. It is quite easy to see that if a/b ∈ Q, then R
can be tiled by finitely many squares, so assume a/b ∈/ Q. Suppose that R is tiled
with finitely many rectangles R1 , . . . , Rn , where Ri is of size ai × bi . Let V ⊂ R
be the rational vector space spanned by the numbers a1 , . . . , an , b1 , . . . , bn , that is,
V consists of all rational linear combinations of the ai ’s and bi ’s. In particular,
a, b ∈ V . Let f be any linear transformation f ∶ V → R satisfying f (a) = 1 and
f (b) = −1.
“Now for any u × v rectangle S with u, v ∈ V define the Hamel area (with
respect to f ) of S to be H(S) = f (u)f (v). If a rectangle S is tiled by finitely many
rectangles S1 , . . . , Sn , then it is easy to check the additivity property
(13.3) H(S) = H(S1 ) + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + H(Sn ).
Namely, first check it for two disjoint rectangles with a common edge, as in the
figure below, which amounts to
f (a)f (b + c) = f (a)f (b) + f (a)f (c).

“To complete the proof that H is additive (equation (13.3)), simply note that
the tiling S1 , . . . , Sn can be refined into a grid tiling.
“Now comes the punch line. Let R be our original a × b rectangle tiled into
finitely many squares Ri , say of size ri ×ri . Then H(R) = −1 while H(Ri ) = f (ri )2 ≥
0, contradicting the additivity of H.”
“Awesome proof!” said Emiliano, with the other students in approval.
“Let’s take another little break so you can gather up some energy for a couple
of more tiling problems.”
During the break Sandra asked Professor Blakeley if there were some nice tiling
problems analogous to tiling an a × b rectangle with a c × d rectangle, but which
couldn’t be solved so easily.
“I’m glad you asked me that, Sandra,” said Professor Blakeley. “There is some
really interesting work in this area. Here is one example. Consider the region T (n)
124 13. GEOMETRY

consisting of a triangular array of n(n + 1)/2 unit regular hexagons. Here is the
case n = 5:

“Call T (2) a tribone. For what values of n can T (n) be tiled by tribones, in
either of the two possible orientations?” Professor Blakeley rummaged through his
backpack and produced the following figure, showing that T (9) could be tiled by
tribones:

“Clearly a necessary condition is that n(n + 1)/2 must be a multiple of 3, so

n ≡ 0, 2 (mod 3). However, this condition is not sufficient. The necessary and
sufficient condition is that
(13.4) n ≡ 0, 2, 9, 11 (mod 12),
but it can be shown that this cannot be proved by an argument analogous to the
one we use for tiling an a × b rectangle with c × d rectangles. I can give you some
references later if you’re interested.”
After the break Professor Blakeley returned to the classroom looking quite
pleased with himself, as he had managed to pass another level of Candy Crush
Friends. “Let’s look at an even more challenging problem about tiling rectangles,
one issue being that we don’t know in advance how large the tiling is. Let x be a
positive real number. I say that a rectangle R is similar to a 1 × x rectangle if R is
an a × ax rectangle for some a > 0. For what positive real numbers x can a square
 13. GEOMETRY 125

be tiled with finitely many copies of rectangles all similar to a 1 × x rectangle? The
rectangles can be in any orientation. Any thoughts?”
Jung Wook was the first to volunteer. “It should be easy whenever x is rational.
I wonder if this condition is necessary.”
“You are right about rationality,” Professor Blakeley said. “For instance, here
is the solution for x = 3/5, from which it should be clear how to do any positive
rational number. In fact, we can take all the rectangles to be congruent, i.e., all
the same size.

“So what about Jung Wook’s suggestion that rationality is also necessary?”
Sam had his hand partially raised, so Professor Blakeley asked him to explain.
“I don’t think that rationality is necessary. We can draw a figure of a tiling and try
to figure out what side lengths will produce this figure. This should involve solving
polynomial equations. For instance, suppose the figure is the following:

“If the square has side 1 and we let the big rectangle at the top be x × 1, then
the rectangle at the lower right is (1 − x) × (1 − x)/x, and the one at the lower left
is (1 − x)/x × x(1 − x). Hence
1−x
x(1 − x) + = 1,
x
so x3 − x2 + 2x − 1 = 0. This polynomial is irreducible over Q since it has degree
three and ±1 are not zeros, so there is a nonrational value of x that works.”
Patrick announced that Sam’s polynomial had exactly one real zero, which was
about 0.569840290998053 . . . .
“Nice!” said Professor Blakeley. “It’s clear that we can get lots of algebraic
numbers in this way. Can we get a transcendental value of x?”
“I don’t think so,” volunteered Fumei. “Whatever the configuration, we should
be able to do an argument like Sam’s to get a polynomial equation satisfied by x.”
126 13. GEOMETRY

Figure 13.1. A polyomino tile with 18 squares

“Your insight is correct, though the details take some work. So the big question
is, what algebraic numbers can we get? This is not so easy.”
The students tended to agree with this assessment, since they could think of
no way to exclude any given positive algebraic number. Perhaps all such numbers
were possible.
Anticipating this line√ of reasoning, Professor Blakeley
√ said, “Here is√an inter-
esting tidbit. The value 2 is not possible, nor is 2 + 43 . However, 2 + 17 12
is
possible.” √
At first this seemed extremely mysterious. Then Sandra noticed that 43 < 2,
√
while 17
12
> 2. Could this observation be somehow relevant?
“You’re on the right track!” said Professor Blakeley. “Let me state the re-
markable result of Freiling-Rinne and Laczkovich-Szekeres (independently). The
real number x > 0 is possible if and only if x is algebraic, and all the conjugates of
x (the zeros of the polynomial over Q of least degree satisfied by x) have positive
real part.
“How is such a result proved? First let’s consider the sufficiency of the condition
on x. It is based on a nice result of H. S. Wall. Given a polynomial P (x) =
xn + an−1 xn−1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + a0 , define its alternant Q(x) by
Q(x) = an−1 xn−1 + an−3 xn−3 + an−5 xn−5 + . . . .
Then all zeros of P (x) have positive real part if and only if we can write
Q(x) −1
(13.5) = ,
P (x) − Q(x) 1
cn x +
1
cn−1 x +
⋱
1
+c x
1
where each ci > 0.
“Given equation (13.5) with each ci > 0, the ci ’s give a recipe for constructing
a tiling of a square by rectangles similar to an x × 1 rectangle. I won’t go into
the details, but they are not so difficult. The case c1 = ⋯ = c6 = 1, for instance,
corresponding to the polynomial P (x) = x6 − x5 + 5x4 − 4x3 + 6x2 − 3x + 1, might
make a diabolical puzzle for a ten-year-old. The rectangles would be given, and the
task would be to assemble them into a square.
“Speaking of diabolical puzzles, consider the tile of Figure 13.1. We give our
hapless victim 500 copies of this tile and ask him or her to assemble some subset
of them into a rectangle, not allowing flipping a tile to the other side. It turns
 13. GEOMETRY 127

out that the least number of tiles needed to accomplish this task is 468. Even if
this were known in advance, it would still be quite a challenging puzzle. It would
continue to remain quite difficult with the additional information that the size of
the tiled rectangle is 78 × 108.
“Shapes such as this one made of unit squares attached along their edges are
known as polyominoes. Given a polyomino, the question of whether some number
of them tile a rectangle is probably undecidable, that is, there is no algorithm that
can decide this. I say ‘probably,’ because there are some similar problems that are
known to be undecidable. For instance, it is known that the problem of tiling some
rectangle (of unspecified size) whose tiles belong to a finite set of polyominoes is
undecidable. One consequence of the undecidability of tiling by a single polyomino
is the following: let r(P ) be the minimum number of copies of the polyomino P
that are needed to tile a rectangle. Set r(P ) = ∞ if no such tiling exists. Let
f (n) be the maximum finite value of r(P ) as P varies over all polyominoes with
n squares. Then f (n) grows faster than any recursive function (essentially, any
function that can be computed on a computer, allowing infinite memory but only a
finite input), since otherwise we could just try all possibilities, say with a backtrack
algorithm, for tiling a rectangle with i copies of an n-square polyomino P for all
i ≤ f (n). I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a polyomino P with under 100 squares,
or certainly under 1000 squares, such that r(P ) > 10100 . Now that would be a real
puzzle!
“Let’s get back to tiling a square with rectangles similar to a 1 × x rectangle.
How does one prove the necessity of the condition that x is an algebraic number
all of whose conjugates have positive real part? I won’t go into the details, but the
idea is similar to the proof that an a × b rectangle can be tiled by finitely many
squares if and only if a/b ∈ Q. Recall that to prove the necessity of the condition
a/b ∈ Q we defined an ‘area function’ (the Hamel area). In our present situation, if
x is algebraic and has a conjugate with a nonpositive real part, then one can define
an additive area function so that all rectangles similar to a 1 × x rectangle have
nonnegative area, while a square has negative area. This immediately contradicts
the existence of a tiling.”
It was time for lunch. On the way to the cafeteria Clayton asked Professor
Blakeley if for every positive integer n there exists a polyomino P with r(P ) = n.
“A good question!” said the Professor. “There has been some research on this
problem.” After briefly consulting his laptop, he continued, “The known values
r(P ) are all numbers 4m with m ≥ 1, together with 1, 2, 10, 18, 50, 138, 246, 270. It
is unknown whether we can have r(P ) = 6 or r(P ) equaling an odd number greater
than 1. I believe that the only value of r(P ) that has been ruled out is r(P ) = 3.”
 CHAPTER 14

Hodgepodge

PROBLEM LIST

⌈ 21/n2 −1 ⌉ = ⌊ log
2n
2
⌋ 130
an = n−1 ∑i=0 ai
1 n−1 2
131
an an−4 = an−1 an−3 + a2n−2 , etc. 131
First four digits of n1000000 are distinct 132
100 prisoners who open 50 boxes each 132
100 prisoners who make their choices in advance 134
100 prisoners who can leave one bit of information each 135
Number of boxes opened by each prisoner for success rate of 50% 135
100 prisoners open 99 boxes each and don’t want to see their name 135
A fly flies between a man and the point 0 135
A fly flies between two approaching trains 136

129
130 14. HODGEPODGE

“No particular topic for today,” said Professor Blakeley as he arrived in class
the next morning, “just a hodgepodge of miscellaneous goodies.
“First some light relief. Is it true that for every positive integer n, we have

2 2n
(14.1) ⌈ ⌉=⌊ ⌋ ?”
21/n −1 log 2

Daniel pointed out that

log 2 log 2 log2 2 log3 2

21/n − 1 = −1 + e n = + + + ...,
n 2n2 6n3
from which it is easy to compute that

2 2n log 2
= −1+ + ....
21/n − 1 log 2 6n

Thus one needed to know whether 2n/(log 2) could be just a tiny bit (in a suitable
precise sense) less than an integer.
“Very nice observation! So who can do the computation?”
No one could find a counterexample to equation (14.1), although Patrick man-
aged to do the computation up to n = 100000 or so.
Professor Blakeley was disappointed. “Can’t anyone do arithmetic computa-
tions in their heads anymore? You should read the story ‘The Feeling of Power’ by
Isaac Asimov, where someone in the future figures out that one can do computa-
tions, including just counting, without a computer. I am afraid I will have to just tell
you the answer: the least value of n for which (14.1) fails is n = 777451915729368.
In fact, for this value of n we have

2
= 2243252046704766.00000000042872157225,
21/n − 1
2n
= 2243252046704766.99999999999999995741.
log 2

“Well, with this big hint, I’m sure you all can see the next value of n for which
(14.1) fails.”
Naturally none of the students had the slightest chance of answering this im-
plied question, so once again Professor Blakeley had to reveal the solution. “It
is 140894092055857794, and then 1526223088619171207, etc. To get a little more
serious, perhaps you are wondering how these huge numbers were found. Daniel’s
observation that 2n/(log 2) is close to an integer is very germane. In fact, if you
have some familiarity with the theory of continued fractions (which I remind you
can be used to find the ‘best’ rational approximations of irrational numbers), then
it’s not hard to show that if m = ⌈2/(21/n − 1)⌉ and the equality (14.1) fails, then
m/n is a convergent of 2/(log 2). This gives a huge reduction in the possible values
of n that we need to look at. If Cn denotes the nth convergent of 2/(log 2), then
we have C1 = 1, C2 = 3, C3 = 23
8
, C4 = 26
9
, etc., until we reach

2243252046704767
C36 = ,
777451915729368
 14. HODGEPODGE 131

so only 36 cases to check rather than 777451915729368. Similarly,

406534415799078269
C40 = ,
140894092055857794
4403748962482230453
C42 = .
1526223088619171207
To my knowledge, only eight values of n are known for which equation (14.1) fails,
and it is not known whether there are infinitely many such values.
“You didn’t do so well on this question, so here is a chance to redeem yourselves.
Define a0 = a1 = 1 and
1 n−1 2
(14.2) an = ∑ a , n > 1.
n − 1 i=0 i
Is an an integer for all n ≥ 0?”
The students quickly went to work with their computers. Patrick managed to
check that an was an integer up to a36 , a number of 697208172 decimal digits. It
seemed like the result should be true, but given that the previous problem broke
down at n = 777451915729368, they weren’t so certain. Attempts to find a proof
were fruitless.
“Here’s a little hint,” said Professor Blakeley. “Work modulo 43.”
This hint was a lot more than ‘little.’ It took less than 30 seconds for the
students to discover that a44 was a rational number with denominator divisible by
43.
“You got it!,” said the Professor. “Indeed 44 is the least integer n for which an
is not an integer, and we have the approximation
a44 = 5.4093 × 10178485291567 .
The sequence a0 , a1 , . . . is sometimes known as Göbel’s sequence. I don’t know if
there is a good reason why an is an integer until the surprisingly large n = 44.
“On the other hand,” said the Professor, “there are sequences which have no
right to be integer valued, so to speak, but nevertheless their terms are all integers.
Four famous examples are the recurrences
an an−4 = an−1 an−3 + a2n−2 , n ≥ 4,
a0 = a1 = a2 = a3 = 1,
an an−5 = an−1 an−4 + an−2 an−3 , n ≥ 5,
a0 = a1 = a2 = a3 = a4 = 1,
an an−6 = an−1 an−5 + an−2 an−4 + a2n−3 , n ≥ 6,
a0 = a1 = a2 = a3 = a4 = a5 = 1,
an an−7 = an−1 an−6 + an−2 an−5 + an−3 an−4 , n ≥ 7,
a0 = a1 = a2 = a3 = a4 = a5 = a6 = 1.
The integrality of the first two of these sequences is a nice exercise, but the last
two are quite challenging. Moreover, the recurrence
an an−8 = an−1 an−7 + an−2 an−6 + an−3 an−5 + a2n−4 , n ≥ 7,
with the initial conditions a0 = ⋯ = a7 = 1, satisfies an ∈ Z for n < 17, but
420514
a17 = .
7
132 14. HODGEPODGE

“These sequences are examples of Somos sequences, which are best understood
in the context of cluster algebras and the related Laurent phenomenon. Sadly I
don’t have the time to discuss this wonderful topic.
“Let me give you one last chance to do a computation in your head. This one
is actually quite easy once you see the trick. Find a positive integer n such that
the first four digits in the decimal expansion of n1000000 are all distinct.”
After a surprisingly short time Jung Wook said, “I got it! We have
10000011000000 = 2718 . . . . ”
“Right you are! There are other more contrived solutions, but you have found
the best one.”
After the customary ten-minute break Professor Blakeley switched to a different
topic. “Earlier1 we looked at a situation where infinitely many prisoners had to
guess some colors. This scenario is not so realistic. There are many ‘beleaguered
prisoners’ problems with only finitely many prisoners. Let me give one of the best
known. Perhaps some day you will find it useful if you become a prisoner.
“An evil warden is in charge of 100 prisoners (all with different names). He puts
a row of 100 boxes in a room. Inside each box is the name of a different prisoner.
The prisoners enter the room one at a time. Each prisoner must open 50 of the
boxes, one at a time. If any of the prisoners does not see his or her own name, then
they are all killed. The prisoners may have a discussion before the first prisoner
enters the room with the boxes, but after that there is no further communication.
A prisoner may not leave a message of any kind for another prisoner. In particular,
all the boxes are shut once a prisoner leaves the room. If all the prisoners choose
50 boxes at random, then each has a success probability of 1/2, so the probability
that they are not killed is 2−100 , not such good odds. Is there a strategy that will
increase the chances of success? What is the best strategy? Please don’t volunteer
if you’ve seen this problem before.”
“We can certainly do better than 2−100 ,” said Jung Wook.
“Oh?”
“The first prisoner chosen by the warden chooses the first 50 boxes, and all
the other prisoners choose the last 50 boxes. If the first prisoner is successful, then
the other prisoners have a probability of 50/99 of success each, so the total success
99
probability is 12 ⋅ ( 50
99
) .”
“This couldn’t be right,” said Sandra. “You have 99 prisoners opening the
same 50 boxes. The probability that all are successful is 0.”
“Hmm, good point,” said Jung Wook. “Well, at least the argument is correct
for the first two prisoners, so the probability goes down to 50 99
⋅ 2−99 .”
“A rather minuscule improvement,” said Professor Blakeley.
“We can apply this argument to 50 pairs of prisoners,” said Sandra. “That
is, prisoners 1, 3, 5, . . . choose boxes 1–50, while prisoners 2, 4, 6, . . . choose 51–100.
Since a prisoner chooses only when the previous prisoners have been successful, this
gets the probability down to
1 50 1 49 1 1
p = ( ⋅ )( ⋅ )⋯( ⋅ ).”
2 99 2 97 2 1
“Numerically this is about 9.9116 × 10−30 , an improvement by a factor of
12.5645 . . . ,” said Professor Blakeley after doing a quick computation on his laptop.
1
Chapter 5
 14. HODGEPODGE 133

“If we apply Sandra’s argument to 2n prisoners and simplify, then we get a

success probability of 1/(2n
n
). This beats random guessing by a factor

22n √
∼ πn,
(2n
n
)

using Stirling’s asymptotic formula for m!. This improvement is still pretty abysmal.
Can we do better?”
After getting no response, Professor Blakeley decided to give a hint. “The key
to understanding this problem is the realization that the prisoners do not have to
decide in advance on which boxes they will open. A prisoner can decide which box
to open next based on what he or she has seen in the boxes previously opened.”
Fumei said, “If a prisoner has to decide which box to open based on what he
or she has seen previously, then the most natural way to do this is for the prisoners
to arbitrarily order themselves P1 , . . . , P100 before the box selection begins. The
prisoner Pi will first go to box i (that is, the ith box in the order they are lined
up). After opening box i, the prisoner will see the name of some prisoner Pj . Then
prisoner Pi next opens box j (unless i = j, in which case Pi is already successful)
and continues this strategy. But I would have to compute whether such a strategy
is an improvement over what Sandra suggested.”
“Excellent insight!” said Professor Blakeley. “How would you compute the
success probability?”
Fumei went into a trance of intense concentration. After a short while, she
said, “Eventually the prisoner Pi must return to box i. The box prior to this will
have the name of Pi inside. Thus this cycle must have length at most 50. In other
words, if Pw(i) is the prisoner whose name is in box i, then all the prisoners will
be successful if and only if the permutation w ∈ S100 has no cycle of length greater
than 50. It shouldn’t be so hard to compute how many such permutations there
are.”
“Fantastic! Fumei’s argument shows that if we have 2n prisoners, then her
strategy has a success probability of f (n)/(2n)!, where f (n) is the number of
permutations in S2n with no cycle of length greater than n. Who can tell me
something about f (n)?”
Soon several hands went up, and Emiliano was selected. “A permutation w ∈
S2n can contain at most one cycle of length greater than n. If this length is k,
then we can choose the k-cycle in (k − 1)!(2n k
) ways, and then choose the rest of w
in (2n − k)! ways. Hence
2n
2n
f (n) = (2n)! − ∑ (k − 1)!( )(2n − k)!
k=n+1 k
2n
1
= (2n)! − (2n)! ∑ ,
k=n+1 k

so the success probability p2n is

2n
1
p2n = 1 − ∑ .”
k=n+1 k

“Fine argument! So about how big is p2n ?”

134 14. HODGEPODGE

“Well,
2n
1 2n 1 n
1
∑ =∑ −∑ .
k=n+1 k k=1 k k=1 k

Now ∑m i=1 i is close to log m − γ, where γ is Euler’s constant, so p2n will be close to
1

1−log 2n+log n = 1−log 2. Maybe I made a mistake since the answer is independent
of n, while it seems intuitive that p2n → 0 as n → ∞.”
“Actually, your computation is impeccable while your intuition is faulty. It is
not hard to see that p2n actually decreases to 1 − log 2 as n → ∞, so for any n,
p2n > 1 − log 2 = 0.30685 . . . . In particular, p100 = 0.31182 . . . . No matter how large
n is, we can achieve more than a 30% chance of success!”
The students who had not seen this problem before were astounded by this
unlikely result.
Professor Blakeley continued, “In fact, it can be shown, but this takes more
work, that Fumei’s strategy is optimal. No strategy can give a higher probability
of success.”
“What if the prisoners have to make all their choices in advance, before opening
a single box?” asked Patrick. “What is the optimal strategy then? We already saw
we can get a success probability of 1/(2n n
).”
“Not a bad question!” said the Professor. “Any thoughts?”
Sam had his hand raised slightly, so Professor Blakeley called on him. “Let’s do
it for 2n prisoners. Suppose prisoner Pi chooses to open the boxes belonging to the
n-element subset Si of [2n]. The prisoners will be successful if Fumei’s permutation
w satisfies w−1 (i) ∈ Si for all i. Let A = (aij ) be the 2n × 2n matrix defined by

1 if i ∈ Sj ,
aij = {
0 otherwise.

Then the number of successful permutations w−1 is just per A, the permanent of A.
Thus we want to find the largest permanent of a 2n × 2n (0, 1)-matrix with n 1’s
in every row. I know there are some inequalities involving maximum and minimum
permanents of (0, 1)-matrices, but I can’t remember them exactly and don’t know
if they are relevant.”
“Right on the button! I remind you that the permanent of an m × m matrix
B = (bij ) is defined by
per B = ∑ b1,w(1) b2,w(2) ⋯bm,w(m) ,
w∈Sm

just like the expansion of the determinant except all the signs are plus. The per-
manent is not nearly as well-behaved or important as the determinant, but it does
have its uses. I hope everyone understands Sam’s contention that the number of
successful permutations is per A.”
No one said otherwise, so Professor Blakeley continued, “Sam is also right about
a permanental inequality being relevant. It’s not so easy to figure out quickly, so I
will just tell you the story.
“Henryk Minc conjectured in 1963 that if B is an m × m (0, 1)-matrix with ri
1’s in row i, then
m
(14.3) per B ≤ ∏(ri )!1/ri .
i=1
 14. HODGEPODGE 135

Minc’s conjecture was proved by Lev Brégman (sometimes spelled without the
accent mark) in 1973. I won’t go into Brégman’s proof, but who sees the relevance
to our prisoner problem?”
It wasn’t long before hands flew into the air. Clayton was chosen. “The ma-
trix A we are looking at is a 2n × 2n (0, 1)-matrix with n 1’s in every row. By
equation (14.3) we have
2n
per A ≤ (n!1/n ) = n!2 .
Hence the largest possible success probability q2n satisfies

n!2 1
q2n ≤ = 2n .
(2n)! ( n )

This is exactly the probability achieved by Sandra’s strategy, so it is best possible.”

“Righto! For 2n = 100, say, quite a difference between the probability 0.31182 . . .
when a prisoner can choose which box to open based on what (s)he has already
seen, and 1/(100
50
) = 9.9116 . . . × 10−30 when all choices must be made in advance!
“Let’s look at a slight variant of the 100 prisoners problem. Each prisoner can
leave one bit of information (that is, either 0 or 1) for the next prisoner. How does
this affect the probability of success?
“There’s an obvious way to get it up to 1/2,” said Jung Wook.
“How’s that?”
“The first prisoner opens boxes 1–50, say. He or she leaves a 0 if the next
prisoner is in boxes 1–50 and a 1 if not (so boxes 51–100). Each prisoner repeats
the same strategy. It doesn’t matter whether or not the choices must be made in
advance.”
“Super! Can we do better?”
“No way! The first prisoner has a 50% chance of success.”
“Right! 50% is optimal and quite easy to prove. Obviously there are many
further variations. Perhaps you can come up with something especially interesting.
On today’s problem set are the following two problems, neither very difficult:
● We now have 2n prisoners and the same evil warden. Let 0 < α < 1.
The prisoners now open 2αn boxes (or more precisely, the nearest integer
to 2αn). As before, all are killed if some prisoner does not see his or her
name. Let pn (α) be the probability of success using the strategy suggested
by Fumei. For what α do we have limn→∞ pn (α) = 1/2?
● Suppose now the 100 prisoners each open 99 boxes, and if any prisoner
sees their name, then all are killed. Note that this time it is bad to see
your own name. What is the optimal strategy and the corresponding
probability of success? Here it turns out that optimality is much easier to
prove than in the original problem.”
After the break, Professor Blakeley said that it was time to do a little mathe-
matical biology since this was currently a very hot subject. The class would discuss
the motion of flies. “Suppose that a man and fly start at the point 0 on the x-axis.
The man walks at a pace of 4 feet/second in the positive x-direction. The fly flies
at a speed of 10 feet/second, moving back and forth between the man and the point
0. We assume that the fly can change its direction instantaneously. Where will the
fly be after one minute?”
136 14. HODGEPODGE

Daniel’s hand went up immediately. “This is just the problem von Neumann
solved by summing the infinite series. The fly flies for one minute at 10 feet/second,
so it has flown a total distance of 10 × 60 = 600 feet.”
“But where does the fly end up?”
“Well, you just . . . .” Daniel was stuck.
“Wait a minute!” said Emiliano. “Something is fishy about this problem. How
does the fly actually start moving?”
“You hit the nail on the head!” said Professor Blakeley. “The fly’s motion is
undefined. You can see this by placing the man at the point x = 240 (where he
will be after one minute) and the fly anywhere between the man and the point 0.
Now run the scenario backwards, and after one minute you will end up with the
same initial condition as our problem: the man and fly are both at 0. The original
problem is an instance of what is called ‘summing an infinite series from the wrong
end.’ ”
“What is the problem that Daniel referred to?” asked Patrick.
Professor Blakeley nodded at Daniel, who said, “I get it now! In the problem
solved by von Neumann, two trains were approaching each other, and the fly was
flying between the two trains, starting at one of the trains. Now there is no problem
getting started. The infinite number of oscillations come at the end, so we have a
normal infinite series. The problem is to compute the distance the fly has flown,
which is just its speed times the time it takes for the trains to meet. When von
Neumann was asked this problem, he instantaneouly gave the correct answer. When
the questioner said, ‘I see that you saw the trick,’ von Neumann replied, ‘What
trick? I summed the infinite series.’ ”
 CHAPTER 15

Self-referential Mathematics

PROBLEM LIST

Distribution of terms of the Kolakoski sequence 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, . . . 138

Nonperiodicity of the Kolakoski sequence 138
Definition of the sequence 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, . . . 139
Growth rate of the previous sequence √ 139
Transcendentality of φ2−φ , where φ = 12 (1 + 5) 139
Transcendentality of eπ 140
Transcendentality of the positive real root of xx = x + 1 140
Growth rate of an+1 = an + a1n 140
The recurrence an+1 = an − a1n 140
The sequence 2, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 2, . . . 141
Wythoff’s Nim 142
Analogue of Beatty’s theorem for triples 144
Definition of the look and say sequence 1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, . . . 144
Only 1, 2, and 3 appear in the look and say sequence 144
Length of the nth term of the look and say sequence 144
13 ⋅ 532 ⋅ 3853 ⋅ 96179 146
An autogram 147

137
138 15. SELF-REFERENTIAL MATHEMATICS

Professor Blakeley started out the next class, after the customary greetings, by
saying “Let’s take a look at some mathematical self-references. Who knows some
examples?”
“Liar paradox!” said Clayton.
“Yes, the sentence ‘This sentence is false.’ is about as self-referential as you can
get. It is also meaningless, at least at the level of rigorous mathematics. There are
many variations, but meaningless statements are not so interesting. Can someone
give a more significant example?”
It wasn’t exactly clear what Professor Blakeley was looking for, but Sandra
ventured, “Gödel’s incompleteness theorem? It is proved by constructing a state-
ment that says ‘This statement is unprovable.’ If the system in which the statement
lies is consistent, then the statement must indeed be unprovable.”
“Excellent example!” said Professor Blakeley, only a little surprised that at
least one of the students had some understanding of Gödel’s famous theorem.
“What I want to do for the remainder of the class is much more mundane. First
we’ll consider some sequences which can be encoded by other sequences, but the
encoding sequence is just the original one!
“If this seems a little vague, then let’s look at the archetypal example, the
sequence

1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, . . . .”

“This looks like the Kokakola sequence or some such name,” suggested Jung
Wook.
“Right! Well, almost right. It is actually called the Kolakoski sequence after
the recreational mathematician William Kolakoski, though it was first discussed
by Rufus Oldenburger in 1939, another confirmation of Stigler’s law of eponymy.
Historically, the Kolakoski sequence was the second sequence to be included in the
OEIS! (The first was the number of groups of order n, up to isomorphism.) Jung
Wook, can you explain how the Kolakoski sequence is defined?”
Jung Wook replied, “Its terms are all 1’s and 2’s, beginning with 1. If you read
the sequence by the length of its runs (maximal subsequences of equal consecutive
letters), then you obtain the same sequence!”
“Exactly. We start with one 1, so we record 1. Then two 2’s, so we record 2.
Then two 1’s, then we record 2, etc. Clearly it is uniquely defined by the properties
given by Jung Wook. Let f (n) be the number of 1’s among the first n terms of
the sequence. Rather surprisingly, it is not known whether limn→∞ f (n)/n exists.
However, the limit is conjectured to exist and to equal 1/2 (no surprise).
“Can someone tell me why the Kolakoski sequence isn’t eventually periodic?”
Daniel’s hand went up immediately. “If the sequence were eventually periodic,
then its run sequence would also be eventually periodic, giving a smaller period.”
“Could you give some more details? By the way, I am happy to see that you
correctly used the subjunctive mode.”
Daniel smiled at this compliment and continued, “Let the Kolakoski sequence
be a1 , a2 , . . . . Suppose it is eventually periodic of minimum period p. Let i ≥ 1 be
any index after the periodicity begins for which ai ≠ ai+1 . Let b1 , b2 , . . . , bk be the
run sequence of the sequence α = ai+1 , ai+2 , . . . , ai+p , that is, bj is the length of the
jth run of α. Clearly k < p and b1 , b2 , . . . , bk is an eventual period, contradicting
the minimality of p.”
 15. SELF-REFERENTIAL MATHEMATICS 139

“A good explanation, though a bit terse. Here is an interesting variant of the

Kolakowski sequence:
1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, . . . .
Who can see the definition?”
After the previous problem, it was easy to figure out the definition of the
current sequence g1 , g2 , . . . . It also was identical to its sequence of run lengths.
The difference with the Kolakoski sequence is that here the sequence begins 1 and
every difference gi+1 − gi is equal to 0 or 1. The number of i’s in the sequence is gi .
“I don’t think there’s a nice formula for gn ,” said Professor Blakeley, “but we
can ask for its rate of growth. Any ideas?”
“Clearly gn ≤ n,” said Daniel. “Moreover, it is termwise larger than the weakly
increasing sequence 1,2,2,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,. . . , where i occurs i times. For this sequence
h1 , h2 , . . . we have h(n+1) = n. This suggests that gn will grow roughly like nα for
2
some 12 < α < 1.”
“Good argument! If we’re lucky, we might even have gn ∼ cnα for some constant
c > 0. Does anyone see a good way to guess the values of α and c?”
After a few minutes some students had an answer, and the Professor chose
Fumei. “By the definition of gn we have immediately that
(15.1) gg1 +g2 +⋅⋅⋅+gn = n + 1.
Approximating gn by cn , then g1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + gn is about cnα+1 /(α + 1) since ∫ xα dx =
α

xα+1 /(α + 1). We can approximate n + 1 on the right-hand side of equation (15.1)
by n, so we get
α
cnα+1
(15.2) c( ) = n.
α+1
√
Thus nα +α = n, so α = 12 (−1 + 5) = φ − 1, where φ is the golden mean. Also
2

looking at the coefficient of n on both sides of equation (15.2) gives

cα+1
= 1,
(α + 1)α
which gives c = φ2−φ .”
“Great! With some careful analysis it can in fact be shown that
(15.3) gn ∼ φ2−φ nφ−1 .
This result would seem quite mysterious to someone who did not know Fumei’s
elegant heuristic argument, and this argument points the way to a rigorous proof.
I should mention that the sequence g1 , g2 , . . . is known as Golomb’s sequence or
sometimes as Silverman’s sequence.
“By the way, is the coefficient φ2−φ appearing in equation (15.3) a transcen-
dental number? Presumably you know that a transcendental number is a complex
number that is not the zero of a nonzero polynomial with rational (or equivalently,
integer) coefficients.”
“Gelfond-Schneider!” said Patrick.
“Can you explain?”
“The Gelfond-Schneider theorem says that if a and b are complex algebraic
numbers and b is irrational, then ab is transcendental. There are some obvious
exceptions like a = 0 or a = 1.”
140 15. SELF-REFERENTIAL MATHEMATICS

√
“Precisely! In fact, a = 0, 1 are the only exceptions. Thus for instance 2 2 is
transcendental, as is φ2−φ . Can anyone tell me why eπ is transcendental?”
Daniel and Patrick quickly raised their hands, followed
√ by Jung Wook, to whom
the Professor pointed. “The complex number i = −1 is algebraic and irrational,
yet eπi = −1, which is not transcendental (or even irrational). By Gelfond-Schneider,
eπ cannot be algebraic.”
“Good! There are also some ‘nonstandard’ applications of the Gelfond-
Schneider theorem. For instance, is the unique positive real root of the equation
xx = x + 1 transcendental?”
The students did not find this problem to be very challenging. Sandra was
asked to explain. “If x is algebraic and irrational, then by Gelfond-Schneider xx is
transcendental. But xx = x + 1, which is algebraic, a contradiction. There remains
p/q
the case that x is rational, say p/q in lowest terms. Then ( pq ) = 1+ pq , so q (as well
as p) is a qth power of an integer. Thus q = 1, but no integer satisfies pp = p + 1.”
“You got it! Let’s go back to the Golomb-Silverman sequence, where Fumei
was able to guess the rate of growth. There are numerous other tricks for guessing
the growth rate of a sequence. Suppose for instance that a1 = 1 and
1
(15.4) an+1 = an + , n ≥ 1.
an
What do you think is the growth rate of an ?”
There were no immediate volunteers, though Professor Blakeley realized that
most of the students would be able to solve this problem within 30 minutes or
so. He said, “The idea is that an is growing sufficiently slowly so that an+1 − an
is close to a derivative. That is, let f (x) be a smooth increasing interpolation of
an , so f (n) = an . Then f (x + 1) − f (x) will be close to (f (x + h) − f (x))/h for h
′
small, so our √ recurrence (15.4) is approximated by f √ (x) = 1/f (x). The solutions
are f (x) = 2x + c, and indeed it turns out that an ∼ 2n. Of course this needs to
be proved rigorously, but this is only a ‘technical difficulty.’
“Note that this method of guessing the answer breaks down completely for a
recurrence like an+1 = an + a2n . Now an is growing so quickly that f (x + 1) − f (x) is
not a good approximation to f ′ (x).
“A superficially similar recurrence is
1
an+1 = an − ,
an
with the initial condition a1 = 2. Can anyone see what is happening?”
After spending less than a minute with his laptop computing several hundred
approximate values, Patrick said, “It seems to be kind of random. If an is large,
then we are subtracting a small number to get the next term. Eventually we will
get close to 1. After that an+1 = an − a1n will be close to 0, so ∣an+2 ∣ again will be
large, and an+2 could be positive or negative. I don’t see any way of being more
precise.”
“Good insight! Indeed, it seems hopeless to determine exactly how close an
will be to 1 in this scenario. In fact, it is an open question whether the sequence
a1 , a2 , . . . is bounded. Note that replacing
√ the recurrence with the differential equa-
tion f ′ (x) = −1/f (x) leads to f (x) = c − 2x, which is nonsense. However, if an is
very large, we can estimate how many steps are necessary before we get close to 1.
Does anyone see this?”
 15. SELF-REFERENTIAL MATHEMATICS 141

Some hands √ went up, and the honor went to Emiliano. “If c is large compared
to x and f (x) = c − 2x, then f (x + 1) −√f (x) is a good approximation
√ to f ′ (x) =
−1/f (x). Thus if ∣an ∣ is large and an ≈ ± c − 2x, then an−1 ≈ ± c − 2(x − 1). This
suggests that it will take about 12 a2n steps to get near 1.”
“Great! Well, it’s time to get back to self-referential sequences. Let’s look at
one more, superficially similar to the Kolakoski sequence, namely,
2, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, . . . .”

The students immediately computed that the run sequence is

1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, . . . ,
obviously not the original sequence. However, it didn’t take long for them to see
that if the 1’s are deleted from the run sequence, then we did get back the original
sequence. Clearly there was a unique such sequence of 2’s and 3’s beginning with
2. Patrick said that it reminded him of some old Putnam problem, but he couldn’t
remember the details.
“You are right about the Putnam,” said Professor Blakeley. “It was Problem
A-6 on the fifty-fourth (1993) exam. The problem asked to show that there is a
real number r such that the numbers n = 1 + ⌊rm⌋, m ≥ 0, index the terms of
the sequence equal to 2. That is, if the sequence is a1 , a2 , . . . , then the mth term
equal to 2 is a1+⌊r(m−1)⌋ . Out of a total of ten points, one participant received nine
points, and no one else received more than four points. Can we do better? The
first step is to figure out the value of r, similarly to how Fumei found heuristically
the asymptotic behavior of Golomb’s sequence.”
Hands quickly were raised, and Emiliano was allowed to explain. “Let n = rm
(approximately). Then among the first n terms about m of them are equal to
2, so n − m = (r − 1)m of them are equal to 3. These terms describe n runs
of 3’s, where the total number of 3’s is 2m + 3(r − 1)m. Thus among the first
n + 2m + 3(r − 1)m = (4r − 1)m terms, n = rm of them are equal to 2. Hence we
should have
rm 1
= .
(4r − 1)m r
√ √
Solving for r gives r = 2 ± 3. Since clearly r > 1, we must have r = 2 + 3.”
“Yep, that’s half the battle! Now comes the unpleasant technical part: √ how to
prove that the terms equal to 2 are indexed by the numbers 1 + ⌊(2 + 3)m⌋ for
m ≥ 0.”
Professor Blakeley thought that it would be unrealistic for the students to come
up with a quick proof, so he deferred it to the problem set.
“We just found a nice formula for the indices (or positions in the sequence) of
the terms equal to 2. Now what about the terms equal to 3?”
“Beatty’s theorem!” exclaimed Daniel and Clayton almost simultaneously.
“Right you are,” said Professor Blakeley. “Daniel, how about explaining what
Beatty’s theorem is and its applicability here?”
“Let x, y be two positive irrational numbers related by
1 1
+ = 1.
x y
142 15. SELF-REFERENTIAL MATHEMATICS

Then Beatty’s theorem says that every positive integer occurs exactly once among
the numbers ⌊mx⌋ and ⌊my⌋ √ for m ≥ 1. √
“If we put x = 2 + 3, then we compute that y = 12 (1 + 3). Therefore the
√
terms equal to 3 are indexed by the numbers 1 + ⌊ m 2
(1 + 3)⌋, m ≥ 1.”
“Exactly! Beatty’s theorem is a handy tool for problem-solving competitions.
Here is another problem where it is used, but it is not at all a priori obvious that
it is relevant.
“I’m sure you’re familiar with the game of Nim, where we begin with a finite
number of nonempty piles of counters (or coins or stones) with various (finite)
numbers of counters in each pile. There are two players, Alice and Bob. (Alice
and Bob seem to play a huge number of different games. I wonder how they find
time to do anything else.) They move alternately, with Alice moving first. A move
consists of taking any positive number of counters from a pile. Whoever is first
unable to move, i.e., who is faced with no remaining counters, is the loser. There is
an elegant strategy for playing Nim based on the binary expansion of the terms of
the sequence. You can look this up later if you haven’t seen it already. Note that
Nim with just two piles of sizes a and b is trivial to analyze. If a = b, then Bob wins
by keeping the two sizes equal. Otherwise Alice wins by the same strategy.
“Now, however, we will look at a variant called Wythoff ’s Nim or Wythoff ’s
Game. We begin with just two piles, but in addition to removing a positive number
of counters from one pile, a player can remove the same positive number of counters
from both piles. Let us call a state of the game a position. For what positions does
Bob win when Alice moves first? We can denote a position by the pair (c, d), where
there are c counters in the first pile and d in the second. By symmetry, we might
as well assume that c ≤ d.”
The students started off by computing some small winning positions for Bob,
so they could get some feeling for the game. Professor Blakeley suggested that a
winning position for Bob should be called safe. The key properties of safe positions
are that any move from a safe position gives an unsafe position, and from any unsafe
position there is some move giving a safe position.
Clearly (0, 0) was safe, since Alice cannot move on her first turn. The positions
(c, d) with c ≤ d from which we can reach (0, 0) in one move are (0, a) and (a, a)
for any a ≥ 1, so these are winning for Alice. The unique position (c, d) with c ≤ d
from which every move leads to a position already known to be a win for Alice is
(1, 2), so (1, 2) is safe. Similarly, the next safe position is (3, 5). Continuing in this
way, we get the following safe positions (a, b), with a ≤ b (computed very quickly
by Patrick, of course):

(15.5) (0, 0), (1, 2), (3, 5), (4, 7), (6, 10), (8, 13), (9, 15), (11, 18), . . . .

A good way to visualize these positions is by drawing a diagram of the points

(a, b) ∈ N2 . When a position (a, b) is winning for Bob, we can circle it and cross
out all points directly to the right (east), above (north), or northeast of (a, b), and
then circling the points closest to the origin that are not circled or crossed out.
 15. SELF-REFERENTIAL MATHEMATICS 143

The students quickly guessed from the data in equation (15.5) that (a) the
differences b − a increased by 1 at each step, and (b) every positive integer appeared
exactly once. These rules determined the positions (a, b) uniquely. Equivalently,
we can order the safe positions as (a0 , b0 ), (a1 , b1 ), . . . such that bn − an = n and
for n ≥ 1, an is the least positive integer not equal to any ai or bi with i < n. Thus
they needed to show that these indeed were the set of safe positions, and then they
needed to figure out what this had to do with Beatty’s theorem.
Soon they had it solved. First Jung Wook gave the proof that the safe positions
were determined by the above rules. “The proof is by induction on n, the base case
n = 0 being clear. Assume for n−1. For the next safe position (an , bn ) (that is, with
the least possible value of an ), an cannot equal a previous ai or bi , since otherwise
we could move from (an , bn ) to (ai , bi ). Similarly bn − an ≥ n. It is easy to check
that if we let an be the least positive integer not among the previous ai ’s and bi ’s,
and set bn = an + n, then every move is to an unsafe position. Thus (an , bn ) is safe,
so the proof follows.”
Daniel explained the connection with Beatty sequences. “Jung Wook showed
that the first coordinates a0 < a1 < ⋯ of safe positions (an , bn ) with an ≤ bn are
obtained recursively by starting at step 0 with a0 = 0, with no positive integer
‘crossed out.’ At step n let an be the least positive integer not crossed out, and
cross out an +n. Thus a1 = 1. We cross out a1 +1 = 2, so a2 = 3. Cross out a2 +2 = 5,
so a3 = 4, etc. Moreover,
√ bn = an + n. I claim that an = ⌊nφ⌋ and bn = ⌊n(φ + 1)⌋,
where φ = 12 (1 + 5), the golden mean. Clearly then bn = an + n. Note that
1 1
+ = 1.
φ φ+1
144 15. SELF-REFERENTIAL MATHEMATICS

Hence by Beatty’s theorem every positive integer is equal to exactly one of an or

bn , n ≥ 1. This proves the claim.”
“All right!” said Professor Blakeley. “There is a natural generalization of the
‘Beatty pair’ (x, y) to triples. Let us call a triple (x, y, z) of positive real numbers
a Blakeley triple if every positive integer occurs exactly once among the numbers
⌊mx⌋, ⌊my⌋, ⌊mz⌋ for m ≥ 1. I have proved an amazing theorem that if (x, y, z) is
a Blakeley triple, then x, y, and z are all imaginary parts of a zero of the Riemann
zeta function on the critical line!”
This fact seemed truly astonishing, almost unbelievable, to the students until
Fumei realized what was going on. “I take it that Blakeley triples don’t exist?” she
asked the Professor.
“Sadly, that is a result of Uspensky from 1927. Admittedly it takes some of
the luster off my theorem. I have put Uspensky’s result on today’s problem set.
“Let’s get back to reading a sequence by the lengths of its runs. This subject
reminds me of the famous sequence

1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, 312211, 13112221, 1113213211, . . . .

Who can see how it is defined?”

Professor Blakeley was a little surprised that none of the students seemed to
have run across this sequence before, as no one raised their hands or spoke imme-
diately. With the big hint that the sequence was related to lengths of runs, soon
however some students figured out the rule. Patrick was chosen to explain. “Given
the nth term Cn of the sequence, for each run aa⋯a record the length of the run
followed by the number a. The sequence of such pairs, one for each run of Cn , gives
the next term Cn+1 . Thus each term is a ‘description’ of the previous term. The
number of terms of Cn+1 is twice the number of runs of Cn .”
“Exactly! Another way to say this is that given the nth term Cn , to obtain
the next term read Cn from left-to-right by saying ‘k j’s’ when we encounter a run
of k consecutive j’s. Thus we read 1 as ‘one 1’ or 11. Next we read 11 as ‘two
1’s’ or 21. Next we read 21 as ‘one 2, then one 1’ or 1211. Next we read 1211 as
‘one 1, then one 2, then two 1’s,’ etc. For this reason the sequence is known as the
look and say sequence. It is due to John Conway. “One simple property which I
leave as an exercise is that only the digits 1,2,3 can appear. The big question is
to determine the length Ln of the nth term in the sequence. Thus L1 = 1, L2 = 2,
L3 = 2, L4 = 4, etc. There is no simple formula for Ln , but there is an explicit
formula for its generating function

F (x) = ∑ Ln xn .
n≥1

Can anyone see what this is?”

By the time Professor Blakeley asked this question, Patrick had already com-
puted a few dozen values of Ln , but he could not make sense of the data. Professor
Blakeley waited a couple of more minutes and continued, “I mentioned before1 that
you need to develop a facility for analyzing data. This kind of problem arises all
the time in research. I am surprised that no one noticed that F (x) is just a rational

1
Chapter 4
 15. SELF-REFERENTIAL MATHEMATICS 145

function! When written in lowest terms it has the form P (x)/(1 − x)Q(x), where

P (x) = x + x2 − x3 − x4 − x5 − x6 − x8 + 4x9 + 6x10 − 6x12 − 8x13

+x14 + 5x15 + 4x16 + x17 + 4x18 + x19 − 3x20 − 6x21 − 8x22
−12x23 + 6x24 + 36x25 + 20x26 + x27 − 58x28 − 34x29 + 30x30
+20x31 + 23x32 − 35x33 + 9x34 + 26x35 − 8x36 − 12x37
−42x38 − 7x39 + 79x40 + 13x41 − 16x42 − 14x43 − 107x44
+65x45 + 33x46 + 32x47 + 39x48 − 126x49 − 38x50 + 25x51
+66x52 + 64x53 − 89x54 + 8x55 − 45x56 + 15x57 + 27x58
−15x59 + 44x60 + 56x61 − 54x62 − 41x63 + 11x64 + 21x65
+50x66 − 62x67 + 19x68 + 4x69 + 4x70 − 15x71 − 31x72
+22x73 + 20x74 − 18x75 + 18x76 − 18x77 + 18x78 − 12x79

and

Q(x) = 1 − x2 − 2x3 − x4 + 2x5 + 2x6 + x7 − x8 − x9 − x10 − x11

= −x12 + 2x13 + 5x14 + 3x15 − 2x16 − 10x17 − 3x18 − 2x19
+6x20 + 6x21 + x22 + 9x23 − 3x24 − 7x25 − 8x26
−8x27 + 10x28 + 6x29 + 8x30 − 5x31 − 12x32 + 7x33
−7x34 + 7x35 + x36 − 3x37 + 10x38 + x39 − 6x40
−2x41 − 10x42 − 3x43 + 2x44 + 9x45 − 3x46 + 14x47
−8x48 − 7x50 + 9x51 + 3x52 − 4x53 − 10x54 − 7x55
+12x56 + 7x57 + 2x58 − 12x59 − 4x60 − 2x61 + 5x62
+x64 − 7x65 + 7x66 − 5x67 + 12x68 − 6x69 + 3x70 − 6x71 .”

The students were not surprised at being chastised by Professor Blakeley for not
immediately seeing this answer by inspection or intuition, but they were surprised
at the amazing answer itself. Why did Ln satisfy a linear recurrence with constant
coefficients of order 72 and no smaller order? How did anyone ever find such a
result?
Anticipating these obvious questions, Professor Blakeley continued, “The key
to understanding the sequence is the fact that after the eighth term (explaining
why deg P (x) − deg(1 − x)Q(x) = 8), every term Cn is a word in an alphabet
consisting of 92 basic sequences, called atoms. Each atom evolves independently
from the others. The simplest atom is 22, which evolves into itself (two 2’s). Other
examples of atoms are a = 3112221, b = 132, and c = 13211. Then a evolves into bc,
etc. Of course there are a lot of things to check, but it is just a finite computation.
Conway and collaborators who helped with this process must have had a lot of
perserverance, since a priori it is not clear there are only finitely many atoms.
Maybe they would have become discouraged after finding 90 atoms and would have
called it a day.
“Let fi (n) be the number of occurrences of the ith atom (after we order them in
some way) in Cn . You can see from what I have said that we will get a system of 92
simultaneous linear recurrences of order one (that is, fi (n+1) is a linear combination
of fj (n)’s). By standard techniques just like we did for computing ur (n) when we
146 15. SELF-REFERENTIAL MATHEMATICS

discussed Stern’s triangle,2 we see that Ln will satisfy a linear recurrence with
constant coefficients of order 92. One can show that the characteristic polynomial
for this recurrence is x18 (x − 1)2 (x + 1)x71 Q(1/x). From the structure of the 92
recurrences it can be seen that the factor (x − 1)(x + 1) will cancel out of this
characteristic polynomial, so the smallest order of a linear recurrence is actually
72, not 74. The factor 1 − x in the denominator arises from the atom 22, which
evolves to itself.
“From the theory of linear recurrences with constant coefficients, we know that
if (1 − x1 )Q(1/x) has a unique zero λ of maximum absolute value greater than 1,
where λ is a positive real number, then
√ Ln+1
lim n Ln = lim = λ.
n→∞ n→∞ Ln

Such a zero does exist here, and

λ = 1.303577269034 . . . .
So you see, the look and say problem is really quite simple.
“More challenging is what happens when we start with an arbitrary first term
like 41122222. Here the next term will be 142152. However we start, except 22, we
will always have this same rate of growth. This is, if we start with a nonempty word
(a nonempty sequence of positive integers of finite length) w ≠ 22 and let Ln (w)
be the length of the nth term, then limn→∞ Ln (w)1/n = λ. This takes quite a bit
of additional work to prove. There will be additional atoms that don’t increase the
overall growth rate.
“Now for a change let’s do something really simple,” said Professor Blakeley,
“namely, multiplying integers, which you learn in elementary school. Here is the
prime factorization of an integer:
13 ⋅ 532 ⋅ 3853 ⋅ 96179.
What is the integer?”
This did not seem to be such a challenging problem. A few students did the
computation on their laptops or phones. “Amazing!” they agreed.
What could be amazing about the decimal expansion of some integer?, thought
the remaining students. Even if it were all 9’s, for instance, it wasn’t so surprising
that some relatively small number of the form 10n − 1 would have a complicated-
looking factorization. Patrick went to the board where Professor Blakeley had
written the product and erased the dots separating the different factors. “That’s
the answer,” he said, “though the fifth digit, a 2, is written rather sloppily.”
By now the other students had checked that the product was indeed
13532385396179.

“What could be simpler?” said Professor Blakeley. “I wonder whether this

elegant rule applies to all products of prime powers. If it does, then we have made
a big breakthrough in the fields of computational complexity and cryptography.”
Unfortunately, Clayton was quick to point out some counterexamples, such as
22 ≠ 22 and 2 ⋅ 3 ≠ 23. A near miss is 25 ⋅ 92 = 2592.

2
Chapter 6
 15. SELF-REFERENTIAL MATHEMATICS 147

“That’s a shame,” said Professor Blakeley. “The case where it does work
was found by the amateur mathematician James Davis on June 4, 2017, thereby
receiving an award of $1000 from John Conway. I’m not sure if it’s known whether
or not there are such examples that are squarefree, so we don’t have to bring down
an exponent.
“My final example of self-reference is not as mathematical as the ones we have
just looked at. Does anyone know what an autogram is?”
“A telegram you send to yourself?” suggested Fumei.
“Nice try, but that doesn’t have much of a self-referential character. No, an
autogram is a sentence which provides an inventory of its own characters. There
are many variants, but a good example is the following sentence:
This sentence employs two a’s, two c’s, two d’s, twenty-eight e’s,
five f’s, three g’s, eight h’s, eleven i’s, three l’s, two m’s, thirteen
n’s, nine o’s, two p’s, five r’s, twenty-five s’s, twenty-three t’s,
six v’s, ten w’s, two x’s, five y’s, and one z.
“You really need a computer to find such sentences.”
 CHAPTER 16

All Good Things Must Come to an End

PROBLEM LIST

√
∑n≥0 ( n )xn = 1/ 1 − 4x
2n
150
∑k=0 ( k )( n−k ) = 4n
n 2k 2(n−k)
150
Partitions of n into odd parts and into distinct parts 151
Combinatorial proof that po (n) = q(n) 151
Partitions with no part appearing once vs. parts congruent to ±1 (mod 6) 151
Partitions with no part appearing exactly 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, or 11 times 152
Monic polynomials of degree n over Fq with no irreducible factor of
multiplicity one 152
Monic squarefree polynomials of degree n over Fq , etc. 152
Power series f (x) such that the coefficient of xn in f (x)n+1 is equal to 1 153
The Lagrange inversion formula 153
Power series g(x) such that the coefficient of xn in g(x)2n+1 is 1 155
Coefficients of the power series y satisfying y = 1 + xy k 155
Power series ι(x) such that the coefficient of xn in ι(x)n is 0, n > 1 156
Cutting a birthday cake with frosting on top 157
The three-gap theorem 158

149
150 16. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END

The last day of class finally arrived. Professor Blakeley dressed appropriately
with a black suit, smartly matching his black shoes, black shirt, and black tie. “A
sad day has arisen in the history of mathematics, the final class of this summer’s
Problem Solving Camp,” he said, as he pulled a black handkerchief from his pocket
and dabbed his eyes.
“One last chance for some mathematics! One of my favorite topics is generating
functions, so let’s look at some nice problems in this area. You are probably already
familiar with some basic generating function techniques. For instance, we have
2n n 1
(16.1) ∑ ( )x = √ ,
n≥0 n 1 − 4x
as may be seen by applying the binomial theorem
α
(1 + t)α = ∑ ( )tk ,
k≥0 k

where we define (αk) by equation (6.1), to the case t = −4x, α = − 21 , and simplifying.
If we square both sides of equation (16.1) and take the coefficient of xn , then we
obtain the identity
n
2k 2(n − k)
∑ ( )( ) = 4n .
k=0 k n−k
This simple identity, which I mentioned in an earlier class,1 is surprisingly difficult
to prove combinatorially.
“You probably also know about using generating functions to prove partition
identities. Recall2 that a partition of n ≥ 0 is a weakly decreasing sequence λ =
(λ1 , λ2 , . . . ) of nonnegative integers λi satisfying ∑ λi = n. Each term λi > 0 is
called a part of λ. If p(n) is the number of partitions of n, then Euler observed
that
1
∑ p(n)x = ∏
n
.
i≥1 1 − x
i
n≥0
This identity can be seen by inspection by expanding each factor
1
= ∑ ximi .
1 − xi mi ≥0
Picking the term ximi from this factor corresponds to requiring the partition λ to
have mi parts equal to i.
“In the same way, if q(n) is the number of partitions of n into distinct parts,
and po (n) is the number of partitions of n into odd parts, then
∑ q(n)x
n
= ∏(1 + x )
i
n≥0 i≥1
1 − x2i
= ∏
i≥1 1 − x
i

1
= ∏
i≥1 1 − x 2i−1

= ∑ po (n)x ,
n
n≥0

1
Equation (6.2).
2
Chapter 8
 16. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END 151

whence we obtain Euler’s famous result q(n) = po (n).

“As an aside, it is natural to ask for a combinatorial proof that po (n) = q(n),
i.e., an explicit bijection from the set of partitions of n with odd parts to those with
distinct parts. Has anyone seen such a bijection before?”
Some hands went up, and Clayton was selected. “Let λ be a partition of n into
odd parts with m2i−1 parts equal to 2i − 1. Thus
n = ∑(2i − 1)m2i−1 .
i

Write each m2i−1 as a sum of distinct powers of two (binary expansion) and dis-
tribute 2i − 1 over the sum. We obtain a partition of n into distinct parts, since
every positive integer can be written uniquely as the product of an odd integer and
a power of two. The process can be reversed, so we have a bijection.”
“Good! As an example, let λ have five parts equal to 9, twelve parts equal to
5, two parts equal to 3, three parts equal to 1, and no other parts. Then we have
112 = 9 ⋅ 5 + 5 ⋅ 12 + 3 ⋅ 2 + 1 ⋅ 3
= 9(1 + 4) + 5(4 + 8) + 3 ⋅ 2 + 1(1 + 2)
= 9 + 36 + 20 + 40 + 6 + 1 + 2.
Some other bijections are known, but this is the most straightforward.
“Let’s try a variant that is a little more subtle. Show that the number of
partitions for which no part appears exactly once is equal to the number of partitions
into parts not congruent to ±1 (mod 6).”
After a while some hands appeared, and Professor Blakeley pointed to Fumei.
“Let f (n) be the number of partitions for which no part appears exactly once.
Then
∑ f (n)x = ∏(1 + x + x + . . . )
n 2i 3i
n≥0 i≥1
x2i
= ∏ (1 + )
i≥1 1 − xi
1 − xi + x2i
= ∏
i≥1 1 − xi
1 − x6i
= ∏ .
i≥1 (1 − x )(1 − x )
2i 3i

Since every multiple of 6 is of the form 2i and 3j, we have

1 1
∏ =∏ ,
i≥1 (1 − x 2i )(1 − x3i )
i≥1 (1 − x 6i )2 (1 − x6i−4 )(1 − x6i−3 )(1 − x6i−2 )

just by rearranging the denominator factors. Therefore

1
∑ f (n)x = ∏
n
,
n≥0 i≥1 (1 − x 6i )(1 − x6i−4 )(1 − x6i−3 )(1 − x6i−2 )

and the proof follows.”

“Very nice!” said Professor Blakeley, thinking that Fumei and the other vol-
unteers must have had a lot of experience with this type of problem to solve it so
quickly.
“This problem is just the first of a large class of similar ones,” he continued.
“For example, the number of partitions of n with no part appearing exactly 1, 2, 3,
152 16. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END

5, 7, or 11 times is equal to the number of partitions of n whose parts are congruent

to 0, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 16, 18, 20, 24, 27, 28, 30, or 32 (mod 36). The proof follows
from the identities
1 (1 − x12 )(1 − x18 )
(16.2) − x − x2 − x3 − x5 − x7 − x11 =
1−x (1 − x4 )(1 − x6 )(1 − x9 )
and
(16.3)
(1 − x12i )(1 − x18i ) 1
∏ = ∏ .
i≥1 (1 − x 4i )(1 − x6i )(1 − x9i )
i≡0,4,6,8,9,12,16,18,20,24,27,28,30,32 (mod 36) 1 − xi
One source of such identities is the theory of ‘cyclotomic numerical semigroups.’ ”
“There is another rather similar, but more subtle, application of the identity
1 − x6
(16.4) 1 + x2 + x3 + x4 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ =
(1 − x2 )(1 − x3 )
used by Fumei,” continued the Professor. “Namely, let P (n) be the number of
monic polynomials f (t) of degree n over Fq such that no irreducible factor of f (t)
has multiplicity exactly equal to one. Then
(16.5) P (n) = q ⌊n/2⌋ + q ⌊n/2⌋−1 − q ⌊(n−1)/3⌋ , n ≥ 2.

“To prove this formula, let β(d) denote the number of monic irreducible poly-
nomials of degree d over Fq . Since every monic polynomial is uniquely a product
of monic irreducible polynomials, we get the well-known formula
1
(16.6) = ∏ (1 − xd )−β(d) .
1 − qx d≥1
Let F (x) = ∑n≥0 P (n)xn . Analogously to equation (16.6) we have
β(d)
x2d
F (x) = ∏ (1 + )
d≥1 1 − xd
β(d)
1 − x6d
= ∏( ) .
d≥1 (1 − x2d )(1 − x3d )
It then follows from (16.6) that
1 − qx6
F (x) =
(1 − qx2 )(1 − qx3 )
x (1 + q)(1 + x) 1 + qx + qx2
= − + − ,
q q(1 − qx2 ) q(1 − qx3 )
from which it is easy to obtain equation (16.5). There is also a solution that does
not use equation (16.4), but it is not as conceptual.
“To test your understanding, try to show that the number of squarefree (that
is, no irreducible factor has multiplicity greater than one) monic polynomials of
degree n over Fq is equal to q n−1 (q − 1) when n ≥ 2. Similarly there is an analogous
result arising from equations (16.2) and (16.3), and more generally, from the theory
of cyclotomic semigroups.
“So far we’ve been looking at rather standard generating function techniques for
problem-solving purposes. Let’s switch gears and try something more challenging.
 16. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END 153

Find the unique power series f (x) = ∑n≥0 an xn with rational coefficients an such
that for all n ≥ 0 the coefficient of xn in f (x)n+1 is equal to 1.”
None of the students had any idea how to do this problem, so they started
calculating. To begin, the case n = 0 gave a0 = 1. Then f (x)2 = 1 + 2a1 x + . . . , so
a1 = 12 . Patrick quickly wrote some code which revealed that
1 1 1 4 1 1
(16.7) f (x) = 1 + x + x2 − x + x6 − x8
2 12 720 30240 1209600
1 691
(16.8) + x10 − x12 + . . . .
47900160 1307674368000
Both Daniel and Emiliano blurted, “Bernoulli numbers!”
The Bernoulli numbers Bn are most succinctly defined by the generating func-
tion
xn x
∑ Bn = x .
n≥0 n! e − 1
Daniel and Emiliano had seen these numbers enough for the equation (16.8) to ring
a bell, and with a little additional computation it didn’t take long to conjecture
that
x xn
f (x) = = ∑ (−1)n
B n .
1 − e−x n≥0 n!
But how to prove it? None of the students could think of a way to get a handle on the
n
coefficients of ( 1−ex−x ) , until Sam raised his hand. “Maybe Lagrange inversion?”
he said.
“Righto!” said Professor Blakeley. “The Lagrange inversion formula is precisely
the tool that is needed. Let me review this terrific result.
“Let F (x) = ∑n≥0 an xn be a formal power series, say with complex coefficients.
‘Formal’ means that we do not regard F (x) as a function of x; F (x) is simply a
way to record the sequence a0 , a1 , . . . . If G(x) = ∑n≥0 bn xn is another power series
and b0 = 0 (denoted G(0) = 0), then we can compute F (G(x)) as a formal series,
namely,
F (G(x)) = a0 + a1 G(x) + a2 G(x)2 + . . . .
Since b0 = 0, the smallest nonvanishing term of G(x)n has degree at least n, so
there are only finitely many terms ai G(x)i that involve xn . Thus no infinite sums
are involved in computing F (G(x)), so F (G(x)) exists as a formal series. Note
that the series G(x) = x is the identity element for composition of series, i.e.,
F (G(x)) = G(F (x)) = F (x) for all F (x).
“Suppose now that a0 = 0 and a1 ≠ 0. An easy induction argument shows that
there is a unique formal series G(x) satisfying F (G(x)) = x. I leave for you the
simple proof that if F (G(x)) = x, then also G(F (x)) = x. Thus the set of formal
power series with a0 = 0 and a1 ≠ 0 form a group under composition. The series
G(x) satisfying F (G(x)) = G(F (x)) = x is called the compositional inverse of F (x)
and is denoted F ⟨−1⟩ (x). For instance, for 0 ≠ a ∈ C we have
⟨−1⟩
x x
( ) = ,
1 − ax 1 + ax
obtained by solving y = x/(1 − ax) for x. Similarly,
(ex − 1)⟨−1⟩ = log(1 + x).
154 16. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END

In general, however, there is no simple expression for F ⟨−1⟩ (x). However, the La-
grange inversion formula gives a formula for the coefficients of F ⟨−1⟩ (x) (or more
generally, F ⟨−1⟩ (x)k ) which is sometimes useful.
“I will use the notation [xn ]F (x) for the coefficient of xn in the power series
F (x). Let F (x) satisfy F (0) = 0 and [x]F (x) ≠ 0, so F ⟨−1⟩ (x) is defined. Let
k, n ∈ Z. The Lagrange inversion formula asserts that
n
⟨−1⟩ x
(16.9) n[x ]F
n
(x) = k[x
k n−k
]( ) .
F (x)
It is surprising that the coefficients of powers of F ⟨−1⟩ (x) are related to coefficients
of powers of x/F (x).
“For the proof, we need to work with power series with finitely many terms
(possibly none) that have negative exponents. Clearly the set C((x)) of such series
forms a C-algebra (a vector space over C and a ring with obvious compatibility
conditions) with the obvious definitions of addition and multiplication. In fact,
C((x)) is even a field, for if F (x) ∈ C((x)), then we can write (uniquely) F (x) =
xm F1 (x), where F1 (0) ≠ 0, and then set
1 x−m
= ,
F (x) F1 (x)
where 1/F1 (x) is the usual division of power series when F1 (0) ≠ 0. Moreover
(though not relevant here), the field C((x)) is the quotient field of the ring C[[x]]
of all formal power series over C. It is obtained from C[[x]] by inverting the single
element x, that is, C((x)) = C[[x]][1/x].
“Okay, now we are all set up for the proof! Given any F (x) = ∑n an xn ∈ C((x)),
we can define the formal derivative F ′ (x) in the obvious way:
F ′ (x) = ∑ nan xn−1 = ∑(n + 1)an+1 xn .
n n
The key ingredient of the proof is the trivial observation that
(16.10) [x−1 ]F ′ (x) = 0.
Now set
F ⟨−1⟩ (x)k = ∑ pi xi ,
i≥k
so
xk = ∑ pi F (x)i .
i≥k
Differentiate both sides to obtain
kxk−1 = ∑ ipi F (x)
i−1
F ′ (x)
i≥k

kxk−1
(16.11) ⇒ = ∑ ipi F (x)
i−n−1
F ′ (x).
F (x)n i≥k

Here we are expanding both sides of (16.11) as elements of C((x)). Thus,

kxk−1 kxk−1
=
F (x)n (a1 x + a2 x2 + ⋯)n

= kxk−n−1 (a1 + a2 x + ⋯)−n .

 16. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END 155

“We wish to take the coefficient of x−1 on both sides of (16.11). Since
1 d
F (x)i−n−1 F ′ (x) = F (x)i−n , i ≠ n,
i − n dx
it follows from (16.10) that the coefficient of x−1 on the right-hand side of (16.11)
is
a1 + 2a2 x + ⋯
[x−1 ]npn F (x)−1 F ′ (x) = [x−1 ]npn ( )
a 1 x + a 2 x2 + ⋯
1
= [x−1 ]npn ( + ⋯)
x
= npn .
Hence
kxk−1
[x−1 ] = npn = n[xn ]F ⟨−1⟩ (x)k ,
F (x)n
which is equivalent to (16.9).
“Does everyone understand the proof?”
No one said otherwise. The argument actually was quite elegant and easy to
follow.
Professor Blakeley continued, “Can someone explain how we can use Lagrange
inversion to see that for all n ≥ 0,
n+1
x
[xn ] ( ) = 1?
1 − e−x
Perhaps Sam would like to explain, since he is already familiar with Lagrange
inversion.”
Sam said, “Define F (x) by f (x) = x/F (x), where f (x) is the power series we
want, that is, [xn ]f (x)n+1 = 1. Putting k = 1 in equation (16.9) gives
n[xn ]F ⟨−1⟩ (x) = 1, n ≥ 1,
so
xn
F ⟨−1⟩ (x) = ∑ = − log(1 − x).
n≥1 n
Hence F (x) = 1 − e−x and f (x) = x/(1 − e−x ).”
“Precisely! It is rather miraculous how it works out so elegantly. To test your
understanding, I have included on today’s problem set the three problems below.
I’m afraid you won’t have much time to work on them since this afternoon’s problem
session is the last one.”
● Find the unique power series g(x) = 1 + 13 x − 45
1 2
x + . . . (over the rationals)
such that for all n ∈ N we have
[xn ]g(x)2n+1 = 1.
● For any integer k ≥ 2 find the coefficients of the power series y = 1 + x +
kx2 + . . . satisfying y = 1 + xy k . In fact, we can let k be an indeterminate.
Note that y does not have a formal compositional inverse!
● Find the coefficients of the unique power series ι(x) = 1 + x − 12 x2 + . . .
satisfying
ι(0) = 1, [x]ι(x) = 1, [xn ]ι(x)n = 0 for n > 1.
156 16. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END

To do this you will have to find the ‘correct’ form of equation (16.9) for
k = 0. Plugging k = 0 into the equation as it stands gives no information.

“Any questions?” said Professor Blakeley.

“Why did you use the letter iota? Why not f , for instance?” asked Clayton.
“I was hoping someone would ask that!” said Professor Blakeley. “It gives me
an excuse to check your vocabulary. What is the meaning of the word iotacism?”
A very strange word, thought the students, but none had seen it before. Daniel
decided to take a wild guess. “Excessive attention to details,” he ventured.
“Not a bad try,” said Professor Blakeley, “but unfortunately incorrect.”
He paused to see if there were any further guesses, and then continued,“It
means the excessive use of the letter iota.”
Could this be a joke? How could a word with such an unlikely meaning come
into existence?
“I know what you must be thinking, but there really is such a word,” said
Professor Blakeley. “It arose in the subject of Greek phonology. A lot of vowels
and diphthongs in ancient Greek converged in pronunciation so they now sound like
iota in modern Greek. The more specific meaning of iotacism refers to this vowel
change, but more generally it means the excessive use of the letter iota.
“Now that you understand iotacism, let’s try another one. What is the meaning
of ‘lambdacism’ ?”
“Well,” said Sandra, “it probably doesn’t mean the excessive use of the letter
lambda. That would be too easy.”
“Right you are! Note that the sound to which λ refers is not a vowel, so it
wouldn’t be involved in the vowel shift from ancient to modern Greek. It actually
refers to a medical condition or speech impediment preventing the proper pro-
nunciation of the sound of the letter l (denoted /l/ in the International Phonetic
Alphabet).
“Let’s try one more,” said Professor Blakeley. “What is the meaning of ‘ep-
siloncism’ ?”
“Either excessive use of the letter epsilon or its sound, or faulty pronunciation
of the sound corresponding to epsilon,” suggested Emiliano.
“Don’t they teach vocabulary anymore in schools?” replied Professor Blakeley.
After a short pause to increase the tension he continued, “What gave you the idea
that epsiloncism is a word?”
Emiliano did not bother to answer this rhetorical question, but he did ask,
“What are all the Greek letters x for which xcism is a word?”
“A natural and important question! It might not be so easy to give a defin-
itive answer, but in addition to iotacism and lambdacism, I did find gammacism,
deltacism, zetacism, etacism (also known as itacism), thetacism, kappacism, mu-
cism (but not related to the letter μ), rhotacism, sigmacism, and omegacism online.
“Can you guess what word describes the excessive use of XOR gates in electrical
circuits?”
Several students groaned when they realized that the word could only be exor-
cism.
“Okay, enough vocabulary lessons,” continued Professor Blakeley. “I don’t
want to get fired for teaching the wrong subject, so let’s get back to math.
“We began this camp with a discussion of cutting cheese, chocolate bars, and
cakes, so it is appropriate to end on the same topic. We have a cylindrical birthday
 16. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END 157

cake with frosting on the top. Let 0 < θ < 2π. Cut out a wedge that makes an
angle θ, remove it from the cake, turn it upside down, and insert it back into the
cake. Now cut another wedge of angle θ adjacent (say counterclockwise) to the first
one and do the same procedure. Continue in this way, always removing a wedge
adjacent in the counterclockwise direction to the wedge just removed and inserted,
and then turning it upside down and inserting it back into the cake. For what
angles θ will we have all the frosting back on top after a finite positive number of
moves?”
“There’s an obvious conjecture,” volunteered Daniel.
“Oh?”
“The angle θ must be a rational multiple of 2π. The condition is clearly neces-
sary, since otherwise each cut will be in the interior of some previous intact piece
P , so after we turn over the new wedge the piece P will have one part with frosting
and one without.”
“Hmm, that seems plausible, but perhaps you are overlooking something.”
At first Daniel’s argument seemed ironclad, but then Jung Wook said, “When
we turn over a piece of cake prior to reinserting it, it reverses the pattern of the
frosted and unfrosted regions. Perhaps this will make a difference.”
“Exactly! It makes quite a big difference. It takes some time to figure out what
is going on, so let me give you a hint. Let n = ⌈2π/θ⌉. Clearly if 2π/θ = n, then
after n flips all the frosting will be on the bottom, and after n more it will be back
on top. So let’s assume 2π/θ ∈/ Z. When we make the kth cut, consider the set Sk
of clockwise angles between that cut and all the radii that separate a frosted region
from an unfrosted region.
“For example, suppose that θ = 2. After one cut the region between the angles
0 and θ will be unfrosted, so S1 = {0, θ}. After the second cut, the unfrosted region
is between 0 and 2θ, so S2 = {0, 2θ}. Similarly S3 = {0, 3θ}. The next cut at the
angle 4θ will be inside the first cut. When we flip, the unfrosted region from 0
and 4θ (counterclockwise) becomes a frosted region from 3θ to 7θ, while the frosted
region from 3θ to 0 becomes an unfrosted region from 7θ to 4θ. (We reduce all
angles ψ modulo 2π so 0 ≤ ψ < 2π.) Thus after the flip the region from 3θ to 7θ
is frosted, while the remaining cake from 7θ to 3θ is unfrosted. The radii between
frosted and unfrosted regions are at 3θ and 7θ. Measuring these angles clockwise
from the position 4θ gives S4 = {−3θ, θ}. Here is the picture.”
0 3θ

7θ

4θ

2θ
158 16. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END

“What can you tell me about the sets Sk for any θ ≠ 2π/n? You can work on
this together for a few minutes.”
After a little while Sandra was chosen to speak. “I think we can show by
induction that for any k, Sk is a subset of
(16.12) {−(n − 1)θ, −(n − 2)θ, . . . , −θ, 0, θ, 2θ, . . . , nθ}. ”
“Exactly! Very nice to get this so quickly! The proof by induction is straight-
forward. The difficulty is figuring out what to prove.”
“The hint didn’t hurt,” said Sandra.
“Undoubtedly, but I’m sure you could have done this without the hint given
some more time. Now what can you conclude about getting all the frosting back
on top?”
“Since there are only finitely many possible Sk , and since given Sk we can
reverse the procedure to get back to Sk−1 , it follows immediately that after finitely
many steps we will get back to the frosting being on top. A crude upper bound for
the number of steps is 22n−1 , the number of subsets of the set (16.12).”
Sam then raised his hand. “I think I can show that if θ ≠ 2π/n, then the least
number of steps to get the frosting back on top is 2n(n − 1). Moreover, we will
never get all the frosting on the bottom as in the θ = 2π/n case.”
“Fantastic! We can discuss this some more during the afternoon session. Sam’s
result raises the following question. For any subset T of the set (16.12) it makes
sense to apply the flipping operation, getting a new subset w(θ). As Sandra men-
tioned, flipping is reversible, so w is a permutation of the 22n−1 subsets of (16.12).
What are the cycle lengths of this permutation? Sam’s result is that the cycle
containing the empty set ∅ has length 2n(n − 1) when θ ≠ 2π/n. I am not aware of
any work on this more general problem.
“Here’s a cute problem on today’s problem set that has some similarity to the
previous one. It is known as the three-gap theorem. Choose a positive integer n
and angle 0 < θ < 2π. Choose a starting point on a circle, and place n − 1 further
points at angles θ, 2θ, . . . , nθ from the starting point, say in the counterclockwise
direction. Show that there are at most three distinct distances between pairs of
adjacent points around the circle.
“There are quite a few . . . ” began Professor Blakeley, who then glanced at the
clock. Time was up. “Never mind, it looks like that does it for my lectures this
summer. If only I had a few hundred more hours . . . . I hope you all had a good
time and learned a lot of interesting mathematics. You were an excellent audience,
and some day I expect you to become famous mathematicians! Maybe some of you
will be giving this same math camp!”
The students stood up and applauded. Professor Blakeley gave a wistful smile
and followed the students out of the classroom.
 Notes

1. First Day
The cheese cutting problem for a 4×4×4 cube, where Jung Wook’s lower bound
of six cuts is still achievable, appears in Gardner [64, pp. 51–52]. The general
problem is discussed again by Gardner [65, p. 34]. In particular, equation (1.1) is
due to Eugene Putzer and R. Lowen [131] in 1958.
The remark by Clayton about a piece of cheese popping out of a Klein bottle
is reminiscent of the end of a story by Martin Gardner [63].
Regarding the trivial cutting problem where each player cuts a piece along a
grid line, Winkler [189, p. 93] says, “This ridiculously easy puzzle has been known
to stump some very high-powered mathematicians for as much as a full day, until
the light finally dawns amid groans and beatings of heads against walls.”
The chocolate bar cutting games where one player can cut horizontally and the
other vertically appears in volume 1 [18, pp. 24–26] of the monumental opus (four
volumes in the A K Peters edition) by Berlekamp, Conway, and Guy.
For an introduction to the theory of fair cake-cutting, see [49] and [93].

2. Polynomials
Professor Blakeley’s amazing variant of Euler’s formula is based on a cartoon
by A. Pun and R. Stanley [130].
The n − 1 inequalities that are equivalent to a real polynomial having only real
zeros are explained by Gantmacher [62, Chap. XV, §9.1].
The origins of the formula for Δ(xn + axm + b) are obscure. Proofs were given
by Swan [173] and by Greenfield and Drucker [78], based on the fact that the dis-
criminant of a polynomial f (x) is essentially the resultant of f (x) and f ′ (x). See
n
also [69, pp. 406–407]. The discriminant of the polynomial ∑ni=0 xn! goes back at
least to a more general result of Hilbert [85]. The polynomial of equation (2.8) is a
generalized Laguerre polynomial. Its discriminant was found by Schur [146]. Some-
times a different but equivalent formula is given because of different conventions in
defining the discriminant.
For information on Newton’s log-concavity theorem, see [83, p. 52].
For a discussion of the terms “Cauchy-Binet formula” vs. “Binet-Cauchy for-
mula,” see [21]. For some information on Cauchy’s contribution to the theory of
determinants, see Muir [113, pp. 92–131].
The result that all zeros of f (x + 1) − uf (x) have real part γ − 12 has a short
historical discussion and proof in [127, p. 577].
159
160 NOTES

3. Base Mathematics
The sequence 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, . . . appears in [38, puzzle 51]. For the
sequence whose terms have vertical symmetry, see [64, p. 161], [66, pp. 205–206].
Michael Freedman [58, p. 122] was the first to find an “exotic” differentiable
structure on R4 , while Clifford Taubes [178] showed that there are a continuum
number of them. For Rn when n ≠ 4, see Stallings [153], in particular Corollary 5.2.
For further information on Catalan numbers, including 214 combinatorial in-
terpretations, see Stanley [165]. In particular, the sum ∑n≥0 C1n is discussed in
Problem A65.
For the greedy construction of sequences containing no three terms in arithmetic
progression, see Odlyzko and Stanley [117]. For some generalizations and further
work, see [48], [100], [111], [112], and the references therein.
For further information related to the bounds on r3 (n) (equation (3.8)), see
[175] and the references therein. The result (3.9) on an infinite sequence of positive
integers with no three terms in arithmetic progression is due to Moser [110].
Maynard’s result about primes with a missing digit appears in [105]. See [16]
for the algorithm of Bailey, Borwein, and Plouffe on the nth binary digit of π. For
a nice survey of the computation of π see [17].
A good survey on the Morse-Hedlund sequence is given by Jean-Paul Allouche
and Jeffrey Shallit [8]. For the minimum density of a letter in an infinite ternary
squarefree word, see Khalyavin [90]. For the maximum density of a letter in an
infinite ternary squarefree word, see Ochem [115]. The result about obtaining a
squarefree word after replacing each ∗ with 0, 1, or 2 is due to Gasnikov and Shur
[61].
For the fairest way to choose gifts and the largest power of x − 1 dividing a
polynomial with ±1 coefficients, see [159] and the references given there.
For the Fibonacci word and related sequences, see [20] and [50].
Regarding Professor Blakeley’s weight control plan, originally I planned to use
this technique to help control the rate of inflation. I am grateful to Anna Ying Pun
for suggesting its applicability to weight control.

4. A Mysterious Visitor
Lagarias’s inequality (4.1) which is equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis ap-
pears in [99].
One reference for the elementary combinatorics of permutations, including Stir-
ling numbers of the first kind, is the text of Stanley [161, §§1.3–1.7].
For the Lloyd-Shepp result (4.3) on the expected length of the longest cycle of
a permutation w ∈ Sn , see [102].
The mysterious visitor is based on a former pet cat named Whitey (despite
being mostly black). I used to amuse my children by demonstrating that Whitey
was a mathematical genius. I would ask Whitey questions similar to the first
question Professor Blakeley asked the cat, and Whitey invariably answered every
question correctly by staying put.
The error of Cayley appears in [33, p. 51]. An interesting related paper is that
of Miller [106].
 6. TWO TRIANGLES 161

5. Set Theory
The problem about uncountably many subsets of Z, any two of which have a
finite intersection, appeared on the Fiftieth William Lowell Putnam Mathematical
Competition (1989) [87, Problem B4, pp. 12, 111].
For the procedure related to the total b-ary expansion of n, see Wikipedia [74].
If we let bi = i + 2 for all i, then the fact that the procedure terminates is known
as Goodstein’s theorem [73]. Of course the proof of termination when bi = i + 2
is exactly the same for the more general version given here with arbitrary bases
bi . There are some interesting computations in the case bi = i + 2. For instance, if
we start with a0 = 4 = 22 , then the largest term is 3 ⋅ 2402653210 . For some further
examples of procedures that unexpectedly terminate, see [67].
Sylver Coinage is discussed in Berlekamp, Conway, and Guy [19, Chap. 18],
summarized in [174].
The problem of partitioning R3 into (disjoint) unit circles appears in Komjáth
and Totik [94, Chap. 13, Problem 13]. I am grateful to Maryanthe Malliaris for
calling this result to my attention.
The fact that the measurability of all subsets of R is consistent with ZF is a
famous result of Solovay [151].
The result of Soifer about a chromatic number depending on the Axiom of
Choice may be found in his paper [150], based on earlier similar results by Shelah
and him.
The problem of the infinitely many prisoners is discussed by Winkler [190,
pp. 91–92, 99–101], including information on the history of this problem. The two
books [189], [190] contain a number of other similar problems, though not involving
set theory in their solution.
For the result about one of five point masses escaping to infinity, see Saari and
Xia [143]. Halpern’s result on a ball escaping a billiard table may be found at [82].
Mathematical billiards is actually a vast subject. For an introduction see Rozikov
[141] and Tabachnikov [176].

6. Two Triangles
Stern’s diatomic array and diatomic series, as well as the Calkin-Wilf tree, had
its genesis in a paper [44, p. 356] of Eisenstein, though some aspects can be traced
all the way back to Kepler [89, Book III, chapter II]. An explicit treatment first
appeared in a paper of Moritz Abraham Stern [171] in 1858.
For the recurrences satisfied by ur (n) see Stanley [170]. The eponymous paper
on the Calkin-Wilf tree, necessarily written by Calkin and Wilf, is [30]. For Profes-
3
sor Blakeley’s statement that the generating function for ∑i (ni) is not algebraic,
see [162, Exer. 6.3].
The formula 12 (3 ⋅ 2n−1 − 1) for the sum of the elements of the Calkin-Wilf tree
at height n is due to Stanley and was generalized by Franco [57].
The result (equation (6.10) in text) that the distribution modulo m of pairs
(bn , bn+1 ) of consecutive terms in Stern’s diatomic sequence is the uniform distri-
bution on pairs a, b generating Z/mZ, and its consequences such as equation (6.9),
is due to Reznick [139]. The equation ∣f (n)∣ = ∑d∣n f (d), along with some similar
equations, was proposed as a problem by Stanley [154], with published solution by
Demos [42].
162 NOTES

7. Independence Day
The problem about choosing five numbers from a hat in increasing order is of
ancient provenance and appears in numerous books and websites.
Some problems analogous to that of counting subsets satisfying S1 ∩ ⋯ ∩ Sk = ∅
appear in Stanley [161, Exer. 1.32].
For information on equation (7.1) (subsets of Z/nZ that sum to 0), see Stanley
[161, Exer. 1.105].
The fundamental bijection w ↦ ŵ was first used by Alfréd Rényi [137] and
first systematically developed by Dominique Foata and Marcel-Paul Schützenberger
[51]. There is also a short discussion in [161, §1.3].
The integral appearing in equation (7.2) is discussed in [6, p. 133], while that
appearing in equation (7.3) is a special case of Selberg’s integral [10, Ch. 8], [56],
[91], first evaluated by Atle Selberg in 1944.
The problem on choosing four points on the surface of a sphere appeared as
Problem A6 on the 53rd William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition (1992)
[87, pp. 27, 159–160].
Valtr’s formula (7.4) appears in [183].
The airplane boarding problem can be found in Winkler, [189, pp. 35–37]. The
original source is unknown. For some further developments see Henze and Last [84].

8. Independence Aftermath
Lovász and Winkler [103, p. 129], [104, Thm. 2] state that the problem about
xi being the last unvisited point on an n-cycle is “folklore.” The result of Lovász
and Winkler that only cycles and complete graphs have this independence property
appears in [104].
Parking functions (though not described in terms of parking cars) were first
enumerated by Ronald Pyke [133] in 1959. The interpretation in terms of parking
cars is due to Alan Konheim and Benjamin Weiss [95]. The elegant proof of Pollak
is cited by Riordan [140]. Parking functions have subsequently arisen in many
additional contexts. A good survey is due to Catherine Yan [192].
The enumeration of tilings of rectangles by snakes, in a more general context,
is due to R. Stanley [157] (published solution by William Chen [35]) and [161,
Exer. 3.56]. For the problems about n and 2n snakes of size n, see Alexandersson
and Jordan [7]. Igor Pak [124] has developed an interesting theory of tiling by
snakes (which he calls ribbon tiles and are also known as ribbons or border strips).
The remarkable formula (8.1) for p(n) is a famous result of Rademacher, build-
ing on previous work of Hardy and Ramanujan. For an exposition see for instance
Andrews [9, Chap. 5]. Later Bruinier and Ono [29] found a complicated formula
for p(n) as a finite sum of algebraic numbers. For the computation of p(1020 ) see
Johansson [86].

9. Amanda
The “Next Card Red” game is discussed, with additional references, in Winkler
[189, pp. 67, 71–72]. The precise provenance of the game where Alice and Bob
choose either the first or last number is unknown. It is also discussed by Winkler
[189, pp. 1–2].
 11. MIRACULOUS CANCELLATION 163

The elegant proof of the noncommutative identity equation (9.1) is due to

Sergey Fomin (personal communication), motivated by his paper [53, proof of
Thm. 1.2]. The generalization due to Krob appears in [97]. A short discussion
also is given by Reutenauer [138, §8]. For the result of Wilkie concerning a high
school algebra identity, see [188] and the Wikipedia article [177].
The nonunique factorization (9.2) appears, in the context of partially ordered
sets, in Birkhoff [22, p. 69], repeated in Stanley [161, Exer. 3.11(c)]. For infor-
mation on subtraction-free complexity, see the paper [54] by Sergey Fomin, Dima
Grigoriev, and Gleb Koshevoy.

10. An Aesthetical Error

For further information on Mazur’s horrendous notation, see [163].
The uniqueness of F2 as a solution to equation (10.1) was noticed by Stanley
[164].
The problem of finding the largest subspace of Mn (F) of nilpotent matrices for
any field F goes back to Gerstenhaber. For some references and similar problems,
see de Seguins Pazzis [147]. Additional information can be found in the slides of
Quinlan [134].
The result of Adams on vector fields on spheres appears in [3]. Readers with a
background in topology might be interested in the course notes of Miller [107]. In
Lecture 2 of this reference appears the construction of ρn (n) linearly independent
vector fields on an n-sphere using Clifford algebras. The argument that ρ16 (16) ≥ 9
is taken from Quinlan [134]. This reference also contains information on the largest
affine subspace of Mn (F) consisting only of nonsingular matrices. The question of
evaluating ρr (n) was raised in [167]. The largest subspace V of Mn (F) such that
every matrix in V has at least one real eigenvalue is discussed in [169].
For basic information on octonions, see Wikipedia [116].

11. Miraculous Cancellation

For some information on the Kentucky Bend, the tiny enclave of Kentucky
surrounded by Missouri and Tennessee, see [88]. For some further interesting geo-
graphical facts, including the closest state to Africa, see the Geography chapter of
Winkler [189].
The result about factoring f (x)−g(y) is reported by Walter Feit [52, Thm. 1.1].
For information on the classification of finite simple groups, see [37]. The example
of degree seven was taken from [125].
It is probably hopeless to track the provenance of Professor Blakeley’s joke
about a formula being obvious. A variant attributed to Kakutani appears in Krantz
[96, p. 3].
The Green-Tao theorem that there are arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions
of (distinct) prime numbers was proved in 2004 by Ben Green and Terry Tao [76].
For examples of long arithmetic progressions of primes, see [77]. For examples of
prime magic squares, see [128].
Erdős [46] showed in 1949 that there exist polynomials whose square has fewer
terms. The first explicit example was given by Rényi in 1947. It has 29 terms,
while its square has 28 terms. The example given by equation (11.2) was found by
Coppersmith and Davenport [40] in 1991. Abbott [2] showed in 2002, using the
theory of Gröbner bases, that 12 is the minimum degree of a polynomial whose
164 NOTES

square has fewer terms. The result about a polynomial of degree n − 1 whose square
has fewer than cn0.81071... terms is due to Verdenius [184]. Further references are
at [187].
The group G of infinite integer sequences (a1 , a2 , . . . ) is known as the Baer-
Specker group or Specker group, after Reinhold Baer and Ernst Specker. For an
introduction to its properties, see [15]. A somewhat different proof of nonfreeness
is given by Blass [23].

12. Probability Theory

The problem about Alice choosing the larger or smaller of two numbers written
by Bob on two sides of a piece of paper appears in Winkler [189, pp. 65, 68–69].
He attributes it to Tom Cover, 1986.
The problem about the least k for which x1 + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + xk > 1 appeared as Problem
A3 of the Eighteenth (1958) Putnam Competition [79, pp. 457–458].
The problem about the probability an that a partial sum of positive integers
is equal to n, in the case of any probability distribution p on P (not just those of
finite support), is due to Feller and Pollard [47]. They give an ingenious elementary
proof. (They also give a nonelementary but somewhat more informative proof when
1/E ≠ 0.) A number of other proofs have been given which use Fourier analysis and
other analytic tools.
Stanley [160] gave a survey of alternating permutations which includes the
results discussed by Professor Blakeley. The result about equation (12.6), i.e.,
x1 +x2 +x3 ≤ 1, x3 +x4 +x5 ≤ 1, etc., appears (in the more general context of partially
ordered sets) in Stanley [155, Cor. 4.2]. The probability that xi + xi+1 + xi+2 ≤ 1,
1 ≤ i ≤ n − 2, is considered in [161, Exer. 4.56(d)]. For a combinatorial proof that
sec2 x = 1 + tan2 x and tan(x + y) = 1−(tan
tan x+tan y
x)(tan y)
, see [162, Exer. 5.7].

13. Geometry
The problem on embedding 2-circles in the plane is a slight generalization, but
with the same proof, of a problem which Winkler [189, p. 56] states has been
attributed to R. L. Moore. An elegant solution to the “more onerous variation”
with Y’s rather than 2-circles, due to Randy Dougherty, also appears in Winkler
[189, pp. 137–138].
The problem of tiling a convex polygon with nonconvex quadrilaterals appears
in [132].
The characterization of the dimensions n for which there exists a regular n-
simplex in Rn with integer vertices is due to Schoenberg [145].
The result about n-dimensional cubes having n+1 vertices that are the vertices
of a regular simplex is due to Grigorév (or Grigorev or Grigoriev or Grigor’ev) [80].
The lower bound on the maximum number f (n) of halving lines is due to Tóth
[181], while the upper bound is given by Dey [43]. For more information on halving
lines, see [123]. The result by Ardila on halving circles appears in [12].
The fourteen proofs on tiling a rectangle with rectangles of at least one integer
side appears in Wagon [185]. The theorem of de Bruijn on tiling an a × b rectangle
with c × d rectangles may be found in [28].
The result that an a × b rectangle can be tiled by finitely many squares if and
only if a/b ∈ Q is due to Max Dehn [41]. The proof given here is due independently
to Hadwiger [81] and Pokrovskiĭ [126], with a simplification by Boltianskiĭ [25, 26].
 15. SELF-REFERENTIAL MATHEMATICS 165

It is also presented in [4, p. 209]. Hadwiger and Pokrovskiĭ use a Hamel basis, i.e.,
a basis for R as a vector space over Q, but Boltianskiĭ pointed out that this was
unnecessary.
The tiling of the region T (n) by tribones is due to Conway (see Conway and
Lagarias [39]) and further explained by Thurston [180]. A more elementary version
of the proof is due to Propp [129].
The result of H. S. Wall on continued fractions appears in [186]. For tilings
of a square by similar rectangles, see Freiling and Rinne [59] and Laczkovich and
Szekeres [98].
The concept of the order r(P ) of a polyomino is due to Klarner [92]. For
information on tiling a rectangle with copies of the same polyomino, see Bodini
[24] and the references therein. A figure of a tiling of a 78 × 108 rectangle with 468
copies of the polyomino of Figure 13.1 appears at [45]. The undecidability of tiling
a rectangle whose tiles belong to a finite set of polyominoes is due to Yang [193].
See Ardila and Stanley [13] for a general survey paper on plane tilings that
should be accessible to undergraduates.

14. Hodgepodge
Equation (14.1) was first considered by Golomb and Hales [72], but an error in
multiprecision arithmetic gave an incorrect value for the first counterexample. The
correct value is due to Buhler in 2004 and is reported by Golomb [71].
For further information on Göbel’s sequence (14.2), see [120].
A good introduction to Somos sequences and the Laurent phenomenon is the
survey by Fomin and Zelevinsky [55]. Two further papers of interest are by Speyer
[152] and by Carroll and Speyer [31].
The 100 prisoners problem was first considered by Peter Miltersen [60] in 2003.
It has been reproduced in numerous places, including [166, §13.1] and [190, pp. 12,
18–20]. Some further beleaguered prisoner problems may be found in [32], [189],
[190].
Minc’s conjecture on permanents of (0, 1)-matrices appears in [108]. In vi-
olation of Stigler’s law of eponymy, Brégman’s theorem was first proved by Lev
Brégman [27]. Subsequently there have appeared a number of other proofs of
Minc’s conjecture. Perhaps the nicest proof is due to Jaikumar Radhakrishnan
[135], [4, Chap. 37], based on the theory of entropy.

15. Self-Referential Mathematics

For information on the Kolakoski sequence see [118]. For Golomb’s sequence
see [119].
The Gelfond-Schneider theorem was proved independently in 1934 by Aleksandr
Gelfond [70] and Theodor Schneider [144]. It was the seventh of Hilbert’s famous
list of 23 unsolved problems. Hilbert predicted that it would be solved long after
the Riemann hypothesis was proved, but it was actually one of the first of Hilbert’s
problems to be solved! The transcendentality of the root of xx = x + 1 is due to
R. Stanley [156].
The recurrence an+1 = an − a1n was mentioned by Ron Graham in a joint address
to the American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Association of America
on August 6, 2000. For a discussion of why the problem of boundedness is so
difficult, see Chamberland and Martelli [34].
166 NOTES

√
The sequence 2, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3, . . . related to 2 + 3 appears in [87, pp. 19–20,
178–180].
Abraham Wythoff analyzed Wythoff’s Nim in 1907 [191]. According to Martin
Gardner [68, p. 106] the game was played in China under the name jiăn shı́zı̆ or
more accurately 捡石子 (“picking stones” or “choosing stones”).
Uspensky’s result [182] on “Blakeley triples” was also proved by Skolem [148]
and Graham [75]. It also appeared as Problem B6 on the Fifty-Sixth (1995) William
Lowell Putnam Competition [87, pp. 214–216].
For information on Conway’s “look and say” sequence, see [121]. For an ex-
planation that the minimum degree of the linear recurrence satisfied by Ln is equal
to 72, see the answer by “Guntram” at [168].
The integer 13532385396179 discovered by James Davis has received a lot of
publicity, for instance, [109]. Further information is given by Sloane [149, pp. 1069–
1070]. For a video discussing this number, see [1].
Autograms were invented and named by Lee Sallows. For further information
see [14].

16. All Good Things Must Come to an End

For a combinatorial proof of the identity ∑nk=0 (2k
k
)(2(n−k)
n−k
) = 4n , see [11] and
the references therein.
For further information on partitions of integers, see Andrews [9] and Stanley
[161, §1.8]. Some references for the problem on partitions for which no part ap-
pears exactly once may be found at [122]. For the theory of cyclotomic numerical
semigroups, see Ciolan, Garcı́a-Sánchez, and Moree [36], and the references therein.
The formula (16.5) for counting monic polynomials of degree n over Fq with
no irreducible factor of multiplicity one is due to Stanley [158], with a published
solution by Richard Stong [172]. The solution given in the text, as well as Stong’s
solution, is sketched in [161, Exer. 1.186(c)].
We have followed the exposition of Lagrange inversion in Stanley [162, §5.4].
For the applications discussed by Professor Blakeley see Exercises 5.55–5.56 and
Example 6.2.6 of this reference.
The origin of the cake with frosting problem is uncertain. For an exposition,
see Winkler [190, pp. 111, 115–118].
The three-gap theorem, also called the three-distance theorem or the Steinhaus
conjecture, was conjectured by Steinhaus in the 1950’s and proved by Sós, Surányi,
and Świerczkowski (independently) in 1958–59. For references see the Wikipedia
article [179].
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 Index

13532385396179, 146, 166 Buhler, Joe Peter, 165

Abbott, John Anthony, 163 Calkin, Neil James, 58, 161

Adams, John Frank, 92, 163 Calkin-Wilf tree, 57, 161
Aissen, Michael, 15 Candy Crush Friends, 124
Alexandersson, Per Wilhelm, 162 Carroll, Gabriel Drew, 165
algebraic (generating function), 55 Catalan number, 25, 160
Allouche, Jean-Paul Simon, 160 Cauchy-Binet formula, 17
alternant (of a polynomial), 126 Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, 35
alternating permutation, 109 Cayley’s formula, 75
André, Désiré, 108 Cayley, Arthur, 37, 92, 160
Andrews, George W. Eyre, 162, 166 Chamberland, Marc André, 165
Ardila, Federico, 121, 164, 165 Chen, William Yongchuan, 162
arithmetic triangle, 50 Chinese remainder theorem, 60
Asimov, Isaac, 130 choosing stones, 166
asymptotic, 27 chromatic number, 44
atom (of the look-and-say sequence), 145 Ciolan, Emil-Alexandru, 166
autogram, 147, 166 Clifford algebra, 163
Aziz, Haris, 7 cluster algebra, 132
Cohen, Paul Joseph, 45
Baer, Reinhold, 164 combinatorial trigonometry, 112
Baer-Specker group, 164 composition (of a positive integer), 77
Bailey, David Harold, 29 compositional inverse, 153
Beatty pair, 144 congruent rectangles, 125
Berlekamp, Elwyn Ralph, 7, 159, 161 continued fraction, 130
Bernoulli numbers, 153 convex hull, 70
Berstel, Jean, 58 Conway, John Horton, 7, 43, 144, 159, 161,
billiards, 46 165, 166
Binet-Cauchy formula, 17 Coppersmith, Don, 163
binomial coefficient, 50 Cover, Tom, 164
Birkhoff, Garrett, 163 cubefree (word), 29
Blakeley triple, 144, 166 cutcake, 4
Blakeley’s triangle, 51 impartial, 4
Blass, Andreas Raphael, 164 cyclotomic numerical semigroup, 152, 166
Bodini, Olivier, 165 cyclotomic polynomial, 117
Boltianskii, Vladimir Grigorevich, 164 cyclotomic semigroup, 152
Borchard, Clayton Wilhelm, 75
border strip, 162 Davenport, James Harold, 163
Borwein, Jonathan Michael, 29 Davis, James, 147, 166
Bourbaki, Nicolas, 2 Dedekind psi function, 60
Brams, Steven J., 7 Dedekind sum, 78
Brégman, Lev M., 135, 165 Dehn, Max Wilhelm, 164
de Bruijn, Nicolaas Govert, 123, 164 Demos, Miltiades Stavros, 161
Bruinier, Jan Hendrik, 162 Dey, Tamal Krishna, 164

175
176 INDEX

diffeomorphic, 23 Hadwiger, Hugo, 164

differentiable manifold, 22 hairy ball theorem, 92
discriminant, 10, 13 Hales, Alfred Washington, 165
division algebra, 92 Halpern, Benjamin Rigler, 47, 161
Dougherty, Randall Lee, 164 halving circle, 121
Drucker, Daniel Stephen, 159 halving line, 120
Hamel area, 123
Eckmann, Beno, 92 Hamel basis, 165
Eisenstein irreducibility criterion, 117 Hamilton, William Rowan, 92
Eisenstein, Ferdinand Gotthold Max, 161 Hardy, Godfrey Harold, 162
entropy, 165 harmonic number, 34
envy-freeness, 7 Hasse-Minkowski theory, 119
epsiloncism, 156 Henze, Norbert, 162
Erdős, Paul (Pál), 163, 164 hereditary base-b notation, 40
Euler number, 108 herpetological mathematics, 76
Euler, Leonhard, 108, 119, 150, 151 Hilbert Hotel, 46
exorcism, 156 Hilbert, David, 159, 165
expectation, 104 Hurwitz, Adolf, 92
factor (of a word or sequence), 29 increasing subsequence, 104
Feit, Walter, 163 indecomposable (polynomial), 98
Feller, William (Vilibald Srećko), 164 iotacism, 156
de Fermat, Pierre, 119
Fibonacci word, 31 jiăn shı́zı̆, 166
fly, motion of, 135 Johansson, Fredrik, 162
Foata, Dominique, 162 Jordan, Linus, 162
Fomin, Sergey Vladimirovich, 163, 165
Fraktur alphabet, 34 Kakutani, Shizuo, 163
Franco, Zachary Martin, 161 Kant, Immanuel, 89
free abelian group, 101 Kentucky Bend, 163
Freedman, Michael Hartley, 160 Kepler, Johannes, 58, 161
Freiling, Christopher Francis, 126, 165 Khalyavin, Andrey, 160
Frobenius-Burnside lemma, 35, 67 Klarner, David Anthony, 165
fundamental bijection, 68 Kolakoski sequence, 138, 165
Kolakoski, William George, 138
Gantmacher, Felix Ruvimovich, 159 Komjáth, Péter, 161
Garcı́a-Sánchez, Pedro Abelardo, 166 Konheim, Alan Gustave, 162
Gardner, Martin, 159, 166 Krantz, Steven George, 163
Gasnikov, Daniil, 160 Krob, Daniel, 85, 163
Gelfond, Aleksandr Osipovich, 165 Kummer’s theorem, 24
Gelfond-Schneider theorem, 139, 165
Gerstenhaber, Murray, 163 Laczkovich, Miklós, 126, 165
Göbel’s sequence, 131, 165 Lagarias, Jeffrey Clark, 34, 160, 165
Gödel incompleteness theorem, 138 Lagrange inversion formula, 154, 166
golden mean, 139, 143 Laguerre polynomial, generalized, 159
Golomb’s sequence, 139, 165 lambdacism, 156
Golomb, Solomon Wolf, 165 Lang, Serge, 89
Goodstein, Reuben Louis, 42 Last, Günter, 162
Graham, Ronald Lewis, 74, 165, 166 lattice point, 118
Graves, John Thomas, 92 Laurent phenomenon, 132, 165
Green, Ben Joseph, 163 left-to-right maximum (of a permutation),
Green-Tao theorem, 99, 163 67
Greenfield, Gary Robert, 159 Legendre’s formula, 24
Grigorév, N. A., 164 Legendre, Adrien-Marie, 24
Gröbner basis, 163 limit ordinal, 41
Guy, Richard Kenneth, 7, 159, 161 Lloyd, Stuart P., 36, 160
longest cycle, 35
Hadamard matrix, 120 look and say sequence, 144, 166
bordered, 120 Lovász, László, 74, 162
 INDEX 177

Lowen, Robert W., 159 prisoners, beleaguered, 45, 132

de Luca, Aldo, 58 proportionality, 7
Lucas’s theorem, 23 Propp, James Gary, 165
Prouhet-Thue-Morse sequence, 29
Mackenzie, Simon, 7 Pun, Anna Ying, 159, 160
Malliaris, Maryanthe, 161 Putzer, Eugene J., 159
Martelli, Mario, 165 Pyke, Ronald, 162
Maynard, James, 28
Mazur, Barry Charles, 89 quadratic form, 12, 119
Millennium Prize Problems, 88 quaternions, 92
Miller, George Abram, 160 Quinlan, Rachel, 163
Miller, Haynes Robert, 163
Miltersen, Peter Bro, 165 Rademacher, Hans Adolph, 162
Minc, Henryk, 134, 165 Radhakrishnan, Jaikumar, 165
Moore, Robert Lee, 164 Radon, Johann Karl August, 92
Moree, Pieter, 166 Ramanujan, Srinivasa Aiyangar, 162
Morse-Hedlund sequence, 29 Raney tree, 58
Moser, Leo, 160 rational (generating function), 55
Muir, Sir Thomas, 159 regular simplex, 118
multiplicative (function), 60 Rényi, Alfréd, 162, 163
multiplicative triangle, 51 Reutenauer, Christophe, 163
reverse alternating permutation, 109
von Neumann, John (János), 136 Reznick, Bruce Arie, 161
New Madrid earthquakes, 97 ribbon, 162
Newton, Isaac, 15 ribbon tile, 162
Nim, 142 Riemann hypothesis, 34, 160
nonvanishing vector field, 92 Rinne, Dan C., 126, 165
Riordan, John Francis, 162
Ochem, Pascal, 160 Rozikov, Utkir Abdulloevich, 161
octonions, 92, 163
Odlyzko, Andrew Michael, 160 Saari, Donald Gene, 161
OEIS, 25 safe (position), 142
Oldenburger, Rufus, 138 Sallows, Lee Cecil Fletcher, 166
Ono, Ken, 162 Schneider, Theodor, 165
ophidiophobia, 78 Schoenberg, Isaac Jacob, 15, 164
order (of a polyomino), 165 Schur, Issai, 159
ordinal number, 41 Schützenberger, Marcel-Paul, 162
secant number, 109
Pak, Igor, 162 Selberg’s integral, 162
parking function, 75, 162 Selberg, Atle, 162
partition (of an integer), 78, 150, 166 Selfridge, John Lewis, 7
partizan game, 5 semidefinite (matrix), 12
Pascal’s triangle, 50 semiring, 85
Peano postulates, 42 de Seguins Pazzis, Clément, 163
permanent, 134 Shallit, Jeffrey Outlaw, 160
picking stones, 166 Shelah, Saharon, 161
Pingal’s Meruprastar, 50 Shepp, Lawrence Alan, 36, 160
Pingala, Archarya, 50 Shur, Arseny M., 160
Plouffe, Simon, 29 Silverman’s sequence, 139
Pokrovskii, V. G., 164 similar rectangles, 124
de Polignac’s formula, 24 Skolem, Thoralf Albert, 166
de Polignac, Alphonse Armand Charles snake, 76, 162
Georges Marie, 24 Soifer, Alexander, 45, 161
Pollak, Henry Otto, 75, 162 Solovay, Robert Martin, 161
Pollard, Harry, 164 Somos sequence, 132, 165
polyomino, 127 sophomore’s dream, 23
power sum symmetric function, 11 Sós, Vera T., 166
primorial number, 99 Specker group, 164
principal leading minor, 11 Specker, Ernst Paul, 164
178 INDEX

Speyer, David E,3 , 165 Wall, Hubert Stanley, 126, 165

spigot algorithm, 29 Weil, André, 3
squarefree (word), 29 Weiss, Benjamin, 162
Stallings, Jr., John Robert, 160 well-ordering (of a set), 43
standard representation (of a permutation), Whitney, Anne Marie, 15
67 wildcard (in a ternary squarefree word), 30
Stanley, Richard Peter, 159–166 Wilf, Herbert Saul, 58, 161
Steinhaus conjecture, 166 Wilkie, Alex James, 85, 163
Steinhaus, Hugo Dyonizy, 166 Winkler, Peter Mann, 74, 159, 162, 164, 166
Stern’s diatomic array, 53, 161 Wythoff’s Game, 142
Stern’s diatomic sequence, 57 Wythoff’s Nim, 142, 166
Stern’s diatomic series, 57 Wythoff, Willem Abraham, 166
Stern’s triangle, 52
Stern, Moritz Abraham, 57, 58, 161 Xia, Zhihong (Jeff), 161
Stern-Brocot sequence, 57 Yan, Catherine Huafei, 162
Stigler’s law of eponymy, 24, 58, 138, 165 Yang, Jed, 165
Stigler, Stephen Mack, 24
Stirling number, signless of first kind, 35, Zelevinsky, Andrey Vladlenovich, 165
160 Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, 42
Stirling’s formula, 133
Stong, Richard Andrew, 166
subtraction-free computation, 86
Surányi, János, 166
Swan, Richard Gordon, 159
Świerczkowski, Stanislaw, 166
Sylver Coinage, 43, 161
Sylvester, James Joseph, 43, 75
Szekeres, George, 126, 165

Tabachnikov, Serge(i), 161

tangent number, 109
Tao, Terence Chi-Shen, 163
Taubes, Clifford Henry, 160
Taylor, Alan Dana, 7
three-distance theorem, 166
three-gap theorem, 158, 166
Thurston, William Paul, 165
Toeplitz matrix, 15
total positivity, 15
total b-ary expansion, 40
Toth, Geza, 164
Totik, Vilmos, 161
transcendental number, 139
tribone, 124, 165
Tutte, William Thomas, 36

Uspensky, James Victor, 144, 166

Valtr, Pavel, 70, 162

valuation (of a cake), 7
value (of a partizan game), 5
Vandermonde determinant, 11
vector field, 92
Verdenius, Wibbe, 164

Wagon, Stanley, 122, 164

3
David Speyer’s middle name is “E”
(no period)
 This book features mathemat-
ical problems and results that
would be of interest to all mathema-
ticians, but especially undergraduates
(and even high school students) who
participate in mathematical competitions
such as the International Math Olympiads and
Putnam Competition. The format is a dialogue
between a professor and eight students in a summer
problem solving camp and allows for a conversational
approach to the problems as well as some mathematical
humor and a few nonmathematical digressions.
The problems have been selected for their entertainment value,
elegance, trickiness, and unexpectedness, and have a wide range
of difficulty, from trivial to horrendous. They range over a wide variety
of topics including combinatorics, algebra, probability, geometry, and set
theory. Most of the problems have not appeared before in a problem or expos-
itory format. A Notes section at the end of the book gives historical information
and references.

For additional information

and updates on this book, visit
www.ams.org/bookpages/mbk-130

MBK/130