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1 vote
0 answers
150 views

What are alternative mathematical definitions of observers beyond Bennett and Hoffman's framework?

Motivation: This question is inspired by a talk from Avi Wigderson given on Randomness, where the idea that the randomness is in the eye of the observer is suggested. In the study of information ...
7 votes
0 answers
222 views

Projected polar chessboard measure convergence in total variation?

$\newcommand\R{\mathbb R}\newcommand\C{\mathbb C}\newcommand\ga{\gamma}$For natural $n$, let $E_n$ be the set of all points in $\R^2$ with "polar coordinates" $(r,t)$ in the set $$F_n:=\...
17 votes
13 answers
6k views

Probability in number theory

I am hearing that there are some great applications of probability theory (or more general measure theory) to number theory. Could anyone recommend some good book(s) on that (or other types of ...
3 votes
3 answers
330 views

Reference request: probability that d numbers are coprime

The following theorem can be found in Hardy-Wright (Theorem 459), except that they state it only for $d=2$. Do you know of a reference where the proof of this general statement is written? Theorem: ...
7 votes
1 answer
465 views

A theorem by Harald Cramér?

In the paper “On the order of magnitude of the difference between consecutive prime numbers” by Harald Cramér there is the following statement: Suppose $\{X_n\}_{n=2}^\infty$ is a sequence of ...
32 votes
3 answers
12k views

What is the Katz-Sarnak philosophy?

It has been recently mentioned by a speaker (his talk is completely not relevant to random matrix theory/RMT though) that modern statistics, especially random matrices theory, will help solving some ...
6 votes
3 answers
938 views

Uniformly distributed sequence in $\mathbb{R}$

We say that a sequence $(x_n)_{n=1}^\infty \subseteq \mathbb{R}$ is "uniformly distributed in $[a,b]$", with $a < b$, if $(x_n)_{n=1}^\infty \cap [a,b] \neq \varnothing$ and $$\lim_{N \to \infty} \...
8 votes
2 answers
512 views

The average of reciprocal binomials

This question is motivated by the MO problem here. Perhaps it is not that difficult. Question. Here is an cute formula. $$\frac1n\sum_{k=0}^{n-1}\frac1{\binom{n-1}k}=\sum_{k=1}^n\frac1{k2^{n-k}}...
3 votes
2 answers
411 views

When are "normal" functions normal?

I expected that the fractional part of f(n), n being an integer, would be distributed uniformly over [0,1] (for positive functions - otherwise take [-1,1]) for any run-of-the-mill function, except ...
8 votes
2 answers
537 views

Famous results about the value of a given limit assuming it exists

Chebyshev got famous showing that if the limit $l:=\lim_{x\to\infty}\frac{\pi(x)}{x/\log x}$ exists, then necessarily $l=1$, constituting a major breakthrough towards a proof of the famous prime ...
11 votes
0 answers
282 views

Reference request: a combinatoric result [closed]

When I tried to construct a counterexample in my research, I encountered the following result, which should be true. Let $m=m(n)$ be a function that grows faster than $\sqrt n$, so $m(n) = \omega(\...
7 votes
2 answers
1k views

What is a random number? (poll experiment) [closed]

Imagine the following experiment: you wait say at a subway exit, and ask everyone passing "please tell me a number" (positive integer, of course). You do this day after day, until you reach say 1M ...