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Mathematics of Computation
Journal of the American Mathematical Society
ISSN 1088-6842(e) ISSN 0025-5718(p)
     

An old conjecture of Erdos-Turán on additive bases

Author(s): Peter Borwein; Stephen Choi; Frank Chu.
Journal: Math. Comp. 75 (2006), 475-484.
MSC (2000): Primary 11B83, 05B20; Secondary 94A11, 68R05
Posted: September 9, 2005
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Abstract | References | Similar articles | Additional information

Abstract: There is a 1941 conjecture of Erdos and Turán on what is now called additive basis that we restate:

Conjecture 0.1(Erdos and Turán). Suppose that $0=\delta_0<\delta_1<\delta_2<\delta_3\cdots$ is an increasing sequence of integers and

\begin{displaymath}s(z) : = \sum_{i=0}^\infty z^{\delta_i}. \end{displaymath}

Suppose that

\begin{displaymath}s^2(z) := \sum_{i=0}^\infty b_i z^i. \end{displaymath}

If $b_i>0$ for all $i$, then $\{b_n\}$ is unbounded.


Our main purpose is to show that the sequence $\{b_n\}$ cannot be bounded by $7$. There is a surprisingly simple, though computationally very intensive, algorithm that establishes this.


References:

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Martin Dowd, Questions related to the Erdos-Turán conjecture, SIAM J. Discrete Math. 1 (1988), no. 1, 142-150. MR 0936616 (89h:11006)

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P. Erdos and R. Frued, On Sidon-sequences and related problems, Mat. Lapok (New Ser.) (1991/2 (in Hungarian)), no. 1, 1-44.

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P. Erdos and P. Turán, On a problem of Sidon in additive number theory, and on some related problems, J. London Math. Soc. 16 (1941), 212-215. MR 0006197 (3:270e)

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G. Grekos, L. Haddad, C. Helou, and J. Pihko, On the Erdos-Turán conjecture, J. Number Theory 102 (2003), no. 2, 339-352. MR 1997795 (2004j:11011)

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Melvyn B. Nathanson, Unique representation bases for the integers, Acta Arith. 108 (2003), no. 1, 1-8. MR 1971077 (2004c:11013)

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Additional Information:

Peter Borwein
Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6
Email: pborwein@cecm.sfu.ca

Stephen Choi
Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6
Email: kkchoi@cecm.sfu.ca

Frank Chu
Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6
Email: pmc@cecm.sfu.ca

DOI: 10.1090/S0025-5718-05-01777-1
PII: S 0025-5718(05)01777-1
Keywords: Erd\H{o}s and Tur\'{a}n conjecture, additive basis
Received by editor(s): September 28, 2004
Received by editor(s) in revised form: November 15, 2004
Posted: September 9, 2005
Additional Notes: This research was supported in part by grants from NSERC of Canada and MITACS
The third author was supported by the NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award.
Copyright of article: Copyright 2005, by the authors


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