Erdős and Szekeres [‘Some number theoretic problems on binomial coefficients’, Aust. Math. Soc. Gaz.5 (1978), 97–99] showed that for any four positive integers satisfying m1+m2=n1+n2, the two binomial coefficients (m1+m2)!/m1!m2! and (n1+n2)!/n1!n2! have a common divisor greater than 1. The analogous statement for k-element families of k-nomial coefficients (k>1) was conjectured in 1997 by David Wasserman.

Erdős and Szekeres remark that if m1,m2,n1,n2 as above are all greater than 1, there is probably a lower bound on the common divisor in question which goes to infinity as a function of m1 +m2 .Such a bound is obtained in Section 2.

The remainder of this paper is devoted to proving results that narrow the class of possible counterexamples to Wasserman’s conjecture.

Assuming a conjecture intermediate in strength between one of Chowla and one of Heath-Brown on the least prime in a residue class, we show that for any coprime integers a and m≥1, there are infinitely many Carmichael numbers in the arithmetic progression a mod m.

Given a finite field 𝔽p={0,…,p−1} of p elements, where p is a prime, we consider the distribution of elements in the orbits of a transformation ξ↦ψ(ξ) associated with a rational function ψ∈𝔽p(X). We use bounds of exponential sums to show that if N≥p1/2+ε for some fixed ε then no N distinct consecutive elements of such an orbit are contained in any short interval, improving the trivial lower bound N on the length of such intervals. In the case of linear fractional functions we use a different approach, based on some results of additive combinatorics due to Bourgain, that gives a nontrivial lower bound for essentially any admissible value of N.

Let 〈𝒫〉⊂N be a multiplicative subsemigroup of the natural numbers N={1,2,3,…} generated by an arbitrary set 𝒫 of primes (finite or infinite). We give an elementary proof that the partial sums ∑ n∈〈𝒫〉:n≤x(μ(n))/n are bounded in magnitude by 1. With the aid of the prime number theorem, we also show that these sums converge to ∏ p∈𝒫(1−(1/p)) (the case where 𝒫 is all the primes is a well-known observation of Landau). Interestingly, this convergence holds even in the presence of nontrivial zeros and poles of the associated zeta function ζ𝒫(s)≔∏ p∈𝒫(1−(1/ps))−1 on the line {Re(s)=1}. As equivalent forms of the first inequality, we have ∣∑ n≤x:(n,P)=1(μ(n))/n∣≤1, ∣∑ n∣N:n≤x(μ(n))/n∣≤1, and ∣∑ n≤x(μ(mn))/n∣≤1 for all m,x,N,P≥1.

For a natural number n, let λ(n) denote the order of the largest cyclic subgroup of (ℤ/nℤ)*. For a given integer a, let Na(x) denote the number of n ≤ x coprime to a for which a has order λ(n) in (ℤ/nℤ)*. Let R(n) denote the number of elements of (ℤ/nℤ)* with order λ(n). It is natural to compare Na(x) with ∑n≤xR(n)/n. In this paper we show that the average of Na(x) for 1 ≤ a ≤ y is indeed asymptotic to this sum, provided y ≥ exp((2 + ε)(log x log log x)1/2), thus improving a theorem of the first author who had this for y ≥ exp((log x)3/4;). The result is to be compared with a similar theorem of Stephens who considered the case of prime numbers n.

Let 𝒜={as(mod ns)}ks=0 be a system of residue classes. With the help of cyclotomic fields we obtain a theorem which unifies several previously known results related to the covering multiplicity of 𝒜. In particular, we show that if every integer lies in more than m0=⌊∑ ks=11/ns⌋ members of 𝒜, then for any a=0,1,2,… there are at least subsets I of {1,…,k} with ∑ s∈I1/ns=a/n0. We also characterize when any integer lies in at most m members of 𝒜, where m is a fixed positive integer.

Browkin [‘Some new kinds of pseudoprimes’, Math. Comp. 73 (2004), 1031–1037] gave examples of strong pseudoprimes to many bases which are not Sylow p-pseudoprimes to two bases only, where p=2 or 3. In contrast to Browkin’s examples, Zhang [‘Notes on some new kinds of pseudoprimes’, Math. Comp. 75 (2006), 451–460] gave facts and examples which are unfavorable for Browkin’s observation on detecting compositeness of odd composite numbers. In particular, Zhang gave a Sylowp-pseudoprime (with 27 decimal digits) to the first 6 prime bases for all the first 6 primes p, and conjectured that for any k≥1, there would exist Sylow p-pseudoprimes to the first k prime bases for all the first k primes p. In this paper we tabulate 27 Sylow p-pseudoprimes less than 1036 to the first 7 prime bases for all the first 7 primes p (two of which are Sylow p-pseudoprimes to the first 7 prime bases for all the first 8 primes p). We describe the procedure for finding these numbers. The main tools used in our method are the cubic residue characters and the Chinese remainder theorem.

A number is called upper (lower) flat if its shift by +1 ( −1) is a power of 2 times a squarefree number. If the squarefree number is 1 or a single odd prime then the original number is called upper (lower) thin. Upper flat numbers which are primes arise in the study of multi-perfect numbers. Here we show that the lower or upper flat primes have asymptotic density relative to that of the full set of primes given by twice Artin’s constant, that more than 53% of the primes are both lower and upper flat, and that the series of reciprocals of the lower or the upper thin primes converges.

The main goal of this paper is to provide asymptotic expansions for the numbers #{p≤x:p prime,sq(p)=k} for k close to ((q−1)/2)log qx, where sq(n) denotes the q-ary sum-of-digits function. The proof is based on a thorough analysis of exponential sums of the form (where the sum is restricted to p prime), for which we have to extend a recent result by the second two authors.

Erdős and Odlyzko proved that odd integers k such that k2n+1 is prime for some positive integer n have a positive lower density. In this paper, we characterize all arithmetic progressions in which natural numbers that can be expressed in the form (p−1)2−n (where p is a prime number) have a positive proportion. We also prove that an arithmetic progression consisting of odd numbers can be obtained from a covering system if and only if those integers in such a progression which can be expressed in the form (p−1)2−n have an asymptotic density of zero.

For each integer n ≥ 2, let β(n) be the sum of the distinct prime divisors of n and let (x) stand for the set of composite integers n ≤ x such that n is a multiple of β(n). Upper and lower bounds are obtained for the cardinality of (x).

In this paper we show that if f (X) ∈; Z [X ] is a nonzero polynomial, then ω(n)/f(n) holds only on a set of n of asymptotic density zero, where for a positive integer n the number ω(n) counts the number of distinct prime factors ofn.

It is well known that, if p is prime, the multiplicative group (ℤ/pℤ)* of reduced residues is cyclic. A generator is called a primitive root; there are φ(p − 1) of them, where φ is Euler's function. Thus, (φ(p − 1)/(p−1) is the proportion of primitive roots modulo p in (ℤ/pℤ)*. Elliott has proved that φp − 1)/(p − 1) has a limiting distribution function [2], in the sense that

exists for all real numbers u.

In 1918 Pólya and Vinogradov established the estimate for Dirichlet character sums that currently carries their names. It was forty years until Burgess gave an improvement of their bound [1], and it is forty years since that improvement.

A version of Gauss's fifth proof of the quadratic reciprocity law is given which uses only the simplest group-theoretic considerations (dispensing even with Gauss's Lemma) and makes manifest that the reciprocity law is a simple consequence of the Chinese Remainder Theorem.

Let ξ be an irrational number with simple continued fraction expansion be its ith convergent. Let Mi = [ai+1,…, a1]+ [0; ai+2, ai+3,…]. In this paper we prove that Mn−1 < r and Mn R imply which generalizes a previous result of the author.

We use a theorem of Loxton and van der Poorten to prove the transcendence of certain real numbers defined by digit patterns. Among the results we prove are the following. If k is an integer at least 2, P is any nonzero pattern of digits base k, and counts the number of occurrences (mod r) of p in the base k representation of n, then is transcendental except when k = 3, P = 1 and r = 2. When (r, k − 1) = 1 the linear span of the numbers has infinite dimension over Q, where P ranges over all patterns base k without leading zeros.

We say that a positive integer d has property (A) if for all positive integers m there is an integer x, depending on m, such that, setting n = m + d, x lies between m and n and x is co-prime to mn. We show that infinitely many even d and infinitely many odd d have property (A) and that infinitely many even d do not have property (A). We conjecture and provide supporting evidence that all odd d have property (A).

Following A. R. Woods [3] we then describe conditions (Au) (for each u) asserting, for a given d, the existence of a chain of at most u + 2 integers, each co-prime to its neighbours, which start with m and increase, finishing at n = m + d. Property (A) is equivalent to condition (A1), and it is easily shown that property (Ai) implies property (Ai+1). Woods showed that for some u all d have property (Au), and we conjecture and provide supporting evidence that the least such u is 2.

This paper studies quintic residuacity of primes p of the form for which the expression for 4f modulo p given in the first volume of this journal becomes indeterminate, and replaces it by a much simpler expression.

It is shown that any odd perfect number has a component greater than 1020.