Sylvester's Sequence - Uniqueness of Quickly Growing Series With Rational Sums

Uniqueness of Quickly Growing Series With Rational Sums

As Sylvester himself observed, Sylvester's sequence seems to be unique in having such quickly growing values, while simultaneously having a series of reciprocals that converges to a rational number.

To make this more precise, it follows from results of Badea (1993) that, if a sequence of integers grows quickly enough that

and if the series

converges to a rational number A, then, for all n after some point, this sequence must be defined by the same recurrence

that can be used to define Sylvester's sequence.

Erdős (1980) conjectured that, in results of this type, the inequality bounding the growth of the sequence could be replaced by a weaker condition,

Badea (1995) surveys progress related to this conjecture; see also Brown (1979).

Read more about this topic:  Sylvester's Sequence

Famous quotes containing the words uniqueness of, uniqueness, quickly, growing, series, rational and/or sums:

    Somehow we have been taught to believe that the experiences of girls and women are not important in the study and understanding of human behavior. If we know men, then we know all of humankind. These prevalent cultural attitudes totally deny the uniqueness of the female experience, limiting the development of girls and women and depriving a needy world of the gifts, talents, and resources our daughters have to offer.
    Jeanne Elium (20th century)

    Until now when we have started to talk about the uniqueness of America we have almost always ended by comparing ourselves to Europe. Toward her we have felt all the attraction and repulsions of Oedipus.
    Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)

    Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it’s be brave or else be killed.
    Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949)

    Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
    Say that health and wealth have missed me,
    Say I’m growing old, but add,
    Jenny kissed me.
    Leigh Hunt (1784–1859)

    There is in every either-or a certain naivete which may well befit the evaluator, but ill- becomes the thinker, for whom opposites dissolve in series of transitions.
    Robert Musil (1880–1942)

    We fetch fire and water, run about all day among the shops and markets, and get our clothes and shoes made and mended, and are the victims of these details, and once in a fortnight we arrive perhaps at a rational moment.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    If God lived on earth, people would break his windows.
    Jewish proverb, quoted in Claud Cockburn, Cockburn Sums Up, epigraph (1981)