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Questions tagged [integer-sequences]

For questions about sequences of integers. References are often made to the online resource oeis.org.

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23 votes
5 answers
1k views

Sequences with integral means

Let $S(n)$ be the sequence whose first element is $n$, and from then onward, the next element is the smallest natural number ${\ge}1$ that ensures that the mean of all the numbers in the sequence is ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
14 votes
2 answers
2k views

sequences with a fractal dimension

This is inspired by the self-similarity of the celebrated Golay-Rudin-Shapiro sequence, more exactly, of its alternating partial sums. (This latter one is oeis 020990). The pictures show the 550 first ...
Wolfgang's user avatar
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7 votes
2 answers
428 views

Limit associated with complementary sequences

Define $A=(a_n)$ and $B=(b_n)$ as follows: $a_0=1$, $a_1=2$, $b_0=3$, $b_1=4$, and $$a_n=a_0b_{n-1}+a_1b_{n-2}$$ for $n \geq 2$, where $A$ and $B$ are increasing and every positive integer occurs ...
Clark Kimberling's user avatar
35 votes
0 answers
1k views

Is there any positive integer sequence $c_{n+1}=\frac{c_n(c_n+n+d)}n$?

In a recent answer Max Alekseyev provided two recurrences of the form mentioned in the title which stay integer for a long time. However, they eventually fail. QUESTION Is there any (added: ...
Ilya Bogdanov's user avatar
24 votes
0 answers
1k views

Is A276175 integer-only?

The terms of the sequence A276123, defined by $a_0=a_1=a_2=1$ and $$a_n=\dfrac{(a_{n-1}+1)(a_{n-2}+1)}{a_{n-3}}\;,$$ are all integers (it's easy to prove that for all $n\geq2$, $a_n=\frac{9-3(-1)^n}{2}...
uvdose's user avatar
  • 655
19 votes
1 answer
1k views

Is OEIS A007018 really a subsequence of squarefree numbers?

A comment in A007018 a(n) = a(n-1)^2 + a(n-1), a(0)=1 claims Subsequence of squarefree numbers (A005117). - Reinhard Zumkeller, Nov 15 2004 Is that really so? As far as I know, it is an open ...
joro's user avatar
  • 25.4k
11 votes
1 answer
864 views

Up to $10^6$: $\sigma(8n+1) \mod 4 = OEIS A001935(n) \mod 4$ (Number of partitions with no even part repeated )

Up to $10^6$: $\sigma(8n+1) \mod 4 = OEIS A001935(n) \mod 4$ A001935 Number of partitions with no even part repeated Is this true in general? It would mean relation between restricted partitions ...
joro's user avatar
  • 25.4k
8 votes
0 answers
1k views

Is the Collatz conjecture known to be true for interesting unbounded classes of numbers?

The Collatz or the $3n+1$ conjecture is open. Is there a specific polynomial $f(x)\in\mathbb Z[x]$ whose range is unbounded for which every integer of form $|f(m)|$ at $m\in\mathbb Z$ satisfies $3n+1$...
Turbo's user avatar
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5 votes
3 answers
1k views

What is the asymptotic of the irregular blue curve? Is it $(8x)^{1/2}$ or is it something else?

From Terry Tao's post here there is the statement: "Conversely, if one can somehow establish a bound of the form $$\displaystyle \sum_{n \leq x} \Lambda(n) = x + O( x^{1/2+\epsilon} ) \tag{1}$$ ...
Mats Granvik's user avatar
  • 1,183
5 votes
0 answers
1k views

A generalization of the difference of squares identity

Let us find explicit integer functions for the coefficients of the monomial expansion of $$ Q \left( x_1, \ldots , x_n \right) = \prod_{\left( \kappa_1, \ldots , \kappa_{n-1} \right) \in \{-1,1\}^{n-1}...
PalmTopTigerMO's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
2k views

Which $n$ maximize $G(n)=\frac{\sigma(n)}{n \log \log n}$?

By Robin's theorem $$G(n)=\frac{\sigma(n)}{n \log \log n}$$ is bounded by $e^\gamma \approx 1.78107241799$ for $n>5040$ assuming Riemann hypothesis . For $n=\mathrm {lcm} (1,2 \dots k)$, $G(n)$ ...
joro's user avatar
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4 votes
2 answers
593 views

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 ...
Jamai-Con's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
308 views

Tangent numbers, secant numbers and permanent of matrices

Inspired by Question 402572, I consider the permanent of matrices $$f(n)=\mathrm{per}(A)=\mathrm{per}\left[\operatorname{sgn} \left(\sin\pi\frac{j+2k}{n+1} \right)\right]_{1\le j,k\le n},$$ where $n$ ...
Deyi Chen's user avatar
  • 884
2 votes
1 answer
172 views

Permutation and its binary analog

Let $f(n)$ be A000045(n), i.e., Fibonacci numbers: $f(n)=f(n-1)+f(n-2)$ for $n>1$ with $f(0)=0$ and $f(1)=1$. Let $g(n)$ be A072649, i.e., $n$ occurs $f(n)$ times. The sequence begins with $$1, 2, ...
Notamathematician's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
182 views

Ask for a proof of an inequality involving the Bernoulli numbers

Let $B_k$ be the Bernoulli numbers and let \begin{equation} T_k=\frac{2^{2k}}{(2k)!}|B_{2k}|, \quad k\ge1. \end{equation} Prove the inequality \begin{equation*} \frac{\frac{1}{k+2}\sum_{j=0}^{k+1}\...
qifeng618's user avatar
  • 1,101
0 votes
1 answer
101 views

Recurrence for the number of steps required to get one ball in each box

Given $n$ balls, all of which are initially in the first of $n$ numbered boxes, $a(n)$ is the number of steps required to get one ball in each box when a step consists of moving to the next box every ...
Notamathematician's user avatar
49 votes
4 answers
4k views

Strange (or stupid) arithmetic derivation

Let us consider the following operation on positive integers: $$n=\prod_{i=1}^{k}p_i^{\alpha_i} \qquad f(n):= \prod_{i=1}^{k}\alpha_ip_i^{\alpha_i-1}$$ (Is it true that if we apply this operation to ...
Daniel Soltész's user avatar
41 votes
2 answers
2k views

Can we find lattice polyhedra with faces of area 1,2,3,...?

I asked this question two months ago on MSE, where it earned the rare Tumbleweed badge for garnering zero votes, zero answers, and 25 views over 61 days. Perhaps justifiably so! Here I repeat it with ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
33 votes
0 answers
2k views

The easily bored sequence

If we want to compare the repetitiveness of two finite words, it looks reasonable, first of all, to consider more repetitive the word repeating more times one of its factors, and secondarily to ...
Alessandro Della Corte's user avatar
33 votes
2 answers
856 views

A sequence potentially consisting of only integers

I will first ask the question which can be stated very simply. Afterwards I will explain some motivation and give references to related sequences. Consider the sequence defined by $$b_n = \frac{(...
John Machacek's user avatar
26 votes
3 answers
907 views

What is the smallest size of a shape in which all fixed $n$-polyominos can fit?

Let $n$ be an integer and consider all fixed $n$-polyominos, i.e., without rotation or reflection. I am interested in finding a shape in which all polyominos can embed. (It is OK if multiple ...
a3nm's user avatar
  • 431
26 votes
1 answer
7k views

Elegant recursion for A301897

Let $a(n)$ be A301897, i.e., number of permutations $b$ of length $n$ that satisfy the Diaconis-Graham inequality $I_n(b) + EX_n(b) \leqslant D_n(b)$ with equality. Here $$a(n)=\frac{1}{n+1}\binom{2n}{...
Notamathematician's user avatar
20 votes
2 answers
1k views

A possibly surprising appearance of $\sqrt{2}.$

Define $A=(a_n)$ and $B=(b_n)$ as follows: $a_0=1$, $a_1=2$, $b_0=3$, $b_1=4$, and $$a_n=a_1b_{n-1}-a_0b_{n-2} + 2n$$ for $n \geq 2$, where $A$ and $B$ are increasing and every positive integer occurs ...
Clark Kimberling's user avatar
20 votes
13 answers
7k views

Longest coinciding pair of integer sequences known

There are arbitrarily many pairs of integer sequences (of arbitrary origins) that coincide upto an $N$ but differ for an $n > N$. I assume, the coincidence will be considered accidentally then by ...
Hans-Peter Stricker's user avatar
18 votes
8 answers
2k views

Computationally challenging integer sequences

I wonder what are the examples of integer sequences, where only few elements are known and the researchers are still actively looking for the new terms. I think this discussion might be a good ...
Anton's user avatar
  • 1,625
17 votes
2 answers
3k views

Some unpublished notes of Hofstadter

I'm looking for some unpublished notes called "Eta Lore," which are apparently related to a talk Douglas Hofstadter first gave at the Stanford Math Club in 1963. I know these notes exist because they'...
15 votes
0 answers
487 views

Word complexity of primes mod 4

For an infinite binary word $w$, the word complexity $f_w(n)$ is defined as the number of different subwords of length $n$. The asymptotic behavior of this function is an important parameter of the ...
Igor Pak's user avatar
  • 17.1k
14 votes
5 answers
977 views

Is the sequence $a_n=c a_{n-1} - a_{n-2}$ always composite for $n > 5$?

Numerical evidence suggests the following. For $c \in \mathbb{N}, c > 2$ define the sequence $a_n$ by $a_0=0,a_1=1, \; a_n=c a_{n-1} - a_{n-2}$ For $ 5 < n < 500, \; 2 < c < 100$ there ...
joro's user avatar
  • 25.4k
14 votes
1 answer
697 views

Are the asymptotics of A003238 known?

Sequence A003238 of the OEIS counts ``rooted trees with $n$ vertices in which vertices at the same level have the same degree.'' The sequence, $a$, begins 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 16, ... and it is ...
Michael Albert's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
427 views

A Collatz-like question about permutations

An answer to this question would provide an explicit counterexample to this question, but otherwise I don't know if it is interesting. Consider all permutations $\pi$ on the natural numbers such that ...
Brendan McKay's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
700 views

When is $\mathrm{gcd}(k,p^k-1)=1$ true?

Let $p$ be a prime. Is there a classification of the numbers $k \geq 1$ such that $\gcd(k,p^k-1)=1$? If not, can we at least produce an explicit infinite subset? What is known about these $k$? For the ...
Martin Brandenburg's user avatar
9 votes
0 answers
398 views

When do almost all these invariants of tensors vanish?

Let $A,B,C,D$ be $n$-dimensional vector spaces over a field $k$. There is a natural homomorphism from the $mn^m$th tensor power $A^{\otimes (m n^m)} $ of $A$ to $k$ given by the determinant map $A^{\...
Will Sawin's user avatar
  • 149k
9 votes
2 answers
1k views

The p-adic valuation of a linear recurrence

Let $(u_n)_{n \geq 0}$ be an integer-valued linear recurrence of order $k \geq 1$. Precisely, $$u_n = a_1 u_{n-1} + \cdots + a_k u_{n - k} \quad \forall n \geq k ,$$ for some $a_1, \ldots, a_k \in \...
user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
945 views

Intuition behind salient numbers in number of h-cobordism classes of smooth homotopy n-spheres

The Wikipedia article on Exotic Sphere displays this sequence of numbers (see also OEIS A001676 and the Milnor link therein) for the order of the classses as $$1, \;1, \;1,\; 1,\; 1, \;1, \;28,\; 2,\; ...
Tom Copeland's user avatar
  • 10.5k
6 votes
2 answers
389 views

Conjectured Somos-like closed form of recurrences with polynomial coefficients

From Our short paper For polynomial $F$ with integer coefficients, define the recurrence $f(n)=F(n,f(n-1),f(n-2),...,f(n-d))$. We conjecture that $f(n)$ satisfy Somos like sequence $f(n)=\frac{G(f(n-1)...
joro's user avatar
  • 25.4k
6 votes
1 answer
268 views

Sequence that sums up to the number of permutations avoiding the pattern $1-23-4$

Let $a(n)$ be A113227, i.e., the number of permutations on $[n]\equiv \{1, \ldots, n\}$ avoiding the pattern $1-23-4$. The sequence begins with $$1, 1, 2, 6, 23, 105, 549, 3207, 20577, 143239, 1071704,...
Notamathematician's user avatar
6 votes
3 answers
2k views

What is the motivation and purpose of the Floretion group?

When searching through the Oeis, I came across something called a floretion. Based on the context, it seems to be some sort of algebraic structure. I googled it and found nothing that explained their ...
Halbort's user avatar
  • 1,129
6 votes
5 answers
546 views

Bounds for $a(n)=a(n-1)+a(\lfloor n/2 \rfloor)$

This is related to problem in graph theory. OEIS defines A033485 as $a(1)=1$ and $a(n)=a(n-1)+a(\lfloor n/2 \rfloor)$. Q1 what are upper bounds and asymptotics for $a(n)$, can we get $\exp(o(n))$? ...
joro's user avatar
  • 25.4k
5 votes
1 answer
359 views

Discrete logarithm and the sequence $a(n)=(g^n \bmod p)^{p-1} \bmod p^2$

Let $p$ be prime and $g,n$ integers. Define $a(n)=(g^n \bmod p)^{p-1} \bmod p^2$ By mod p we don't mean congruence, but the reduction modulo $p$ operator. $A \bmod ...
joro's user avatar
  • 25.4k
3 votes
1 answer
240 views

The sequence $a(n)=(2^n \bmod p)^{p-1} \bmod p^2$

Related to this question. Let $p$ be prime and $n$ positive integer. Define $a(n)=(2^n \bmod p)^{p-1} \bmod p^2$ Let $D(n)$ be the base $2$ discrete logarithm of $a(n)$, i.e. given $p,a(n)$ we have $2^...
joro's user avatar
  • 25.4k
3 votes
1 answer
140 views

Sequences that sum up to Dowling numbers

Let $a(n,k)$ be the sequence of $k$-Dowling numbers (for more information see A007405 and its CROSSREFS section) with e.g.f. $$\operatorname{exp}\left(x + \frac{\operatorname{exp}(kx) - 1}{k}\right)$$ ...
Notamathematician's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
344 views

Another integral that has a closed form involving finite series of $\zeta(2k+1)$'s. Could it be reflexive?

In the context of a series of questions here, here and here, about closed form expressions involving finite series of $\zeta(2k+1)$'s for certain integrals, I would like to raise another one: $$f(n):=...
Agno's user avatar
  • 4,169
2 votes
0 answers
137 views

Writing integers as sequences of products by 2 and integer divisions by 3

For any integer, we consider its decompositions into sequences of products by $2$ and integer division by $3$. For instance: $$ 100 = 2 \cdot 2 \cdot 2 \cdot 2 \cdot 2 \cdot 2 \cdot 2 \cdot 2 \cdot 2 \...
Matthieu Latapy's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
236 views

An integer sequence related to Pascal’s triangle

We need someone expert in binomial coefficients (subject 11B65) to recognize the integer sequence generated by an iterative formula we have encountered while working on a project about Pascal’s ...
Monk's user avatar
  • 125
2 votes
1 answer
214 views

Tower-of-squares sequence divides linear recurrent A001921 sequence?

Let $(a_n)$ be the A001921 sequence $$ a_0 = 0,\ a_1 = 7, \quad a_{n+2} = 14a_{n+1} - a_n + 6. $$ Let $(b_k)$ be the (almost)"tower-of-squares" sequence defined by $$ b_0=2, \quad b_{k+1}=2b_k^...
Ewan Delanoy's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
534 views

Can these sequences stay integer-valued as many times as we want and then fail?

Edit: Suppose that we choose some integer $d$ and some natural number $c=c_2$. Then if we plug those values into $$ c_{n+1}=\frac{c_n(c_n+n+d)}n $$ and observe the behavior of this recursively ...
user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
128 views

Bounds for the sequence $a(n,A)=n*a(\lfloor (1-A)n \rfloor,A)$

Related to this question and possibly the open problem of the exponential time hypotheses. Let $A$ be rational number, $0 < A < 1$. For positive integer $n$, define the sequence $a(1,A)=1$ and $(...
joro's user avatar
  • 25.4k
1 vote
1 answer
594 views

Polynomials, $3^x$ and the Collatz conjecture

$\DeclareMathOperator\Orb{Orb}\newcommand\abs[1]{\lvert#1\rvert}$The Collatz or the $3n+1$ conjecture is open. Are there non-trivial polynomials $f(x)\in\mathbb Z[x]$ and $g(x)\in\mathbb R[x]$ having ...
Turbo's user avatar
  • 13.9k
0 votes
1 answer
133 views

Elementary description to count of perfect squares - I

Is there an elementary description of $$N(a)=\Big|\Big\{x\in\{0,1,\dots,\Big\lfloor\frac a2\Big\rfloor-1,\Big\lfloor\frac a2\Big\rfloor\Big\}:\sqrt{x(a-x)}\in\Bbb Z\}\Big|$$ and though likely non-...
Turbo's user avatar
  • 13.9k