Questions tagged [elementary-proofs]
For questions related to 'elementary' proofs in a technical sense, which has nothing to do with the difficulty of the argument or result. A typical example would be 'elementary' proofs of the Prime Number Theorem, which avoid complex analysis. The tag is however not limited to this particular notion of 'elementary.'
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real symmetric matrix has real eigenvalues - elementary proof
Every real symmetric matrix has at least one real eigenvalue. Does anyone know how to prove this elementary, that is without the notion of complex numbers?
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Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind and primality testing
Can you provide a proof or a counterexample for the claim given below ?
Inspired by Agrawal's conjecture in this paper and by Theorem 4 in this paper I have formulated the following claim :
Let $...
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Unrigorous British mathematics prior to G.H. Hardy
I was looking at a bio-movie of Ramanujan last night. Very poignant.
Also impressed by Jeremy Irons' portrayal of G.H. Hardy.
In G.H. Hardy's wiki page, we read:
. . . "Hardy cited as his most ...
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Squares in Lucas sequences
Good night, everyone!
According to a celebrated result by J. H. Cohn, the only perfect squares in the Fibonacci sequence are $F_{0}=0$, $F_{1}=F_{2}=1$, and $F_{12}=144$. It is also known that the ...
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What is the simplest proof that the density of primes goes to zero?
By density of primes, I mean the proportion of integers between $1$ and $x$ which are prime. The prime number theorem says that this is asymptotically $1/\log(x)$.
I want something much weaker, namely ...
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Which theorems have Pythagoras' Theorem as a special case?
Loomis famously wrote hundreds of proofs of Pythagoras' Theorem (reference below), but these are all basically proofs "from below". Today on Twitter @panlepan mentioned Carnot's theorem ...
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A trigonometric equation: how hard could it be?
The following problem started out with a formulation in terms of complex numbers: let $\epsilon=e^{\frac{\pi i}3}$ and $z=e^{\frac{2\pi i}{3(2n-1)}}$. It's rather amusing that the following appears to ...
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Ideas in the elementary proof of the prime number theorem (Selberg / Erdős)
I'm reading the elementary proof of prime number theorem (Selberg / Erdős, around 1949).
One key step is to prove that, with $\vartheta(x) = \sum_{p\leq x} \log p$,
$$(1) \qquad\qquad \vartheta(x) \...
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Is there an elementary way to find the integer solutions to $x^2-y^3=1$?
I gave this problem to my undergraduate assistant, as I saw that Euler had originally solved it (although I am having trouble finding his proof). After working on it for two weeks, we boiled the hard ...
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What is the simplest proof that the density of coprime pairs does not go to zero?
By density of coprime pairs, I mean the proportion of pairs integers between $1$ and $x$ which are coprime.
This is known to be asymptotically $1/\zeta(2)$.
I want something much weaker, namely that ...
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An elementary proof that, for every fixed $n \in \mathbf N^+$, there are infinitely many primes $\equiv -1 \bmod n$
This morning, I made a comment to a comment to a question of Ayman Moussa, only to point out that, among many others, there is an elementary proof of Dirichlet's theorem on the existence of infinitely ...
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Nonstandard proofs of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic
Thirty or so years ago, someone showed me a clever proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic that did not make use of the lemma "If $p\mid ab$ then $p\mid a$ or $p\mid b$". I'm unable ...
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At what point would an elementary generalization of Bertrand's Postulate be interesting?
I know that in 1952 Jitsuro Nagura was able to show that there is always a prime between $k$ and $\frac{6k}{5}$ for $k > 24$.
At what point would an improvement on Nagura's result be interesting? ...
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Solving the quartic equation $r^4 + 4r^3s - 6r^2s^2 - 4rs^3 + s^4 = 1$
I'm working on solving the quartic Diophantine equation in the title. Calculations in maxima imply that the only integer solutions are
\begin{equation}
(r,s) \in \{(-3, -2), (-2, 3), (-1, 0), (0, -1),...
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Is an irreducible ideal in $R$ also irreducible in $R[x]$?
Let $R$ be a commutative Noetherian ring and $I\subset R$ an ideal that is irreducible in the sense that if $I = J_1 \cap J_2$, then $I=J_1$ or $I=J_2$. Is (the ideal generated by) $I$ irreducible in ...
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Sum of squared nearest-neighbor distances between points in a square
Let $\square_2=\{(x,y): 0\leq x, y\leq1\}$ be the unit square in $\mathbb{R}^2$. Take $n>1$ points $P_1, \dots, P_n\in\square_2$.
Denote the distances $d_j=\min\{\Vert P_k-P_j\Vert: k\neq j\}$, ...
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Roots and relation between polynomials and their derivatives
This is probably easy but it might be interesting. Here goes $\dots$
Let $P\in\mathbb{R}[x]$ be a polynomial of degree $n>2$ and $P'=\frac{dP}{dx}$. If $x_1, x_2, \dots, x_n$ are the roots of $P(x)...
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Length of Hirzebruch continued fractions
Suppose $a,b$ are two natural numbers relatively prime to $n$ and to each other. Assume $n\geq ab+1$. Suppose further that $\frac{a}{b}\equiv k \pmod{n}$ for some $k\in \lbrace 1,2,\dots, n-1\rbrace$ ...
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What is the value of this double sum in closed form?
I encountered the following double sum which requires an evaluation.
Is there a closed form for this?
$$\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}\frac{\sum_{k=0}^n\binom{n}k^{-1}}{(n+1)(n+2)}.$$
Incidentally, it ...
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Prove that these are polynomials
Define the functions
$$F_n(q)=\frac1{(1-q)^{2n}}\sum_{k=0}^n(-q)^k\frac{2k+1}{n+k+1}\binom{2n}{n-k}
\prod_{j=0,\,j\neq k}^n\frac{1+q^{2j+1}}{1+q}.$$
The numbers $\frac{2k+1}{n+k+1}\binom{2n}{n-k}$ ...
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An infinite series that converges to $\frac{\sqrt{3}\pi}{24}$
Can you prove or disprove the following claim:
Claim:
$$\frac{\sqrt{3} \pi}{24}=\displaystyle\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}\frac{1}{(6n+1)(6n+5)}$$
The SageMath cell that demonstrates this claim can be found ...
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Generating function for $3$-core partitions
Let $\lambda$ be an integer partition: $\lambda=(\lambda_1\geq\lambda_2\geq\dots\geq0)$. Further, let $h_u$ denote the hook-length of the cell $u$.
We call $\lambda$ a $t$-core partition if none of ...
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A link between hooks and contents: Part II
This is a question in the spirit of an earlier problem.
Let $\lambda$ be an integer partition: $\lambda=(\lambda_1\geq\lambda_2\geq\dots\geq0)$.
Recall also the notation for the content of a cell $...
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A link between hooks, contents and parts of a partition
Let $\lambda$ be an integer partition: $\lambda=(\lambda_1\geq\lambda_2\geq\dots\geq0)$. Denote its conjugate partition by $\lambda'$. For example, if $\lambda=(4,3,1)$ then $\lambda'=(3,2,2,1)$.
...
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Solution to a Diophantine equation
Find all the non-trivial integer solutions to the equation
$$\frac{a}{b+c}+\frac{b}{a+c}+\frac{c}{a+b}=4.$$
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How to understand the "boundary" of subscheme, as defined in "An elementary characterisation of Krull dimension"
In An elementary characterisation of Krull dimension and A short proof for the Krull dimension of a polynomial ring, Coquand, Lombardi, and Roy give an elementary characterization of Krull dimension, ...
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Primality test for $N=2^a3^b+1$
Can you prove or disprove the following claim:
Let $N=2^a3^b+1$ , $a>0 , b>0$ . If there exists an integer $c$ such that $$c^{(N-1)/3}-c^{(N-1)/6} \equiv -1 \pmod{N}$$ then $N$ is a prime.
You ...
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Lemoine-Lozada circles
I made some rookie attempt to define the 4th Lemoine circle recently. The alternative name for this circle was suggested yesterday. Further investigation revealed a family of circles associated with ...
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The 4th Lemoine circle
The first and second Lemoine circles are well-known to geometers. According to this article the third Lemoine circle has been first discovered by Jean-Pierre Ehrmann in 2002. It is worth noting that ...
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Going beyond the Sylvester and Schur theorem with regard to $x,x+1,\dots,x+n-1$
I was recent reading through Paul Erdos's classic elementary proof of Sylvester-Schur. It occurred me that there is a simple argument that when $x$ is sufficiently large and if $p_i$ represents the $...
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Which part(s) of this proof of Goodstein's Theorem are not expressible in Peano arithmetic?
EDIT: Noah Schweber helpfully points out that $\mathsf{ACA}_0$ is a conservative extension of Peano arithmetic in which certain aspects of my proof not expressible in Peano arithmetic are expressible. ...
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Primality test for specific class of generalized Fermat numbers
Can you provide a proof or a counterexample for the following claim :
Let $P_m(x)=2^{-m}\cdot((x-\sqrt{x^2-4})^m+(x+\sqrt{x^2-4})^m)$ .
Let $F_{p,n}= (2p)^{2^n}+1 $ where $p$ is a prime number ...
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The constant $e$ represented by an infinite series
In this Wikipedia article the constant $\pi$ is represented by the following infinite series: $$\pi=1+\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{3}+\frac{1}{4}-\frac{1}{5}+\frac{1}{6}+\frac{1}{7}+\frac{1}{8}+\frac{1}{9}-\...
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Primality test for specific class of $N=k \cdot b^n-1$
This question is successor of Compositeness test for specific class of $N=k \cdot b^n-1$ .
Can you provide a proof or a counterexample to the following claim :
Let $P_m(x)=2^{-m}\cdot \left(\left(...
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Formula for $\pi$ involving exponents of Mersenne primes
Can someone provide a proof for the following claim?
$$\pi=\dfrac{S_0S_2}{M_3M_5} \cdot\left(\displaystyle\prod_{p \equiv 1 \pmod{4} } \frac{p}{p-1}\right) \cdot \left(\displaystyle\prod_{p \equiv 3 \...
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Primality test for specific class of $N=8kp^n-1$
My following question is related to my question here
Can you provide a proof or a counterexample for the following claim :
Let $P_m(x)=2^{-m}\cdot \left(\left(x-\sqrt{x^2-4}\right)^{m}+\left(x+\...
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These polynomials are always either even or odd [duplicate]
The falling factorials are $(x)_n=x(x-1)\cdots(x-n+1)$ with $(x)_0:=1$. Define the forward shift $E$ and the discrete derivative $\delta=E-1$, respectively, by
$$Ef(x)=f(x+1) \qquad \text{and} \qquad \...
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Primality test for specific class of $N=12k \cdot 5^n-1$
Can you provide a proof for the following claim:
Let $P_m(x)=2^{-m}\cdot \left(\left(x-\sqrt{x^2-4})^m+(x+\sqrt{x^2-4}\right)^m\right)$ .
Let $N= 12k \cdot 5^{n} - 1 $ where $n\ge3$ , $12k <5^n$ ...
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Pseudo-Droz-Farny circles
I would like to present a construction of 2 circles. These 2 circles are somewhat similar in appearance to the well known Droz-Farny circles that can be drawn for every isogonal conjugate pairs of ...
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A formula for the area of bicentric quadrilateral
Can you provide a proof for the claim given below? The following claim is inspired by Harcourt's theorem and can be seen as its generalization to quadrilaterals.
Claim. Given bicentric quadrilateral $...
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