Monday, June 29, 2020

Fractional parts of harmonic numbers

The $n^{th}$ harmonic number $H_n$ is defined as

$$H_n = \sum_{k=1}^{n} \dfrac{1}{k} = 1 + \dfrac{1}{2} + \dots + \dfrac{1}{n}$$

It is known that $H_n$ is never an integer except for $n=1$.

The problem in this post is to show that we can get arbitrarily close.

i.e.

Show that there is an ascending sequence of integers $n_1 \lt n_2 \lt n_3 \lt \dots $ such that

$$ \lim_{k \to \infty} \{H_{n_k}\} = 0$$

where $\{x\}$ is the fractional part of x. Eg, $\{H_2\} = \frac{1}{2}, \{H_3\} = \frac{5}{6}$

In general it seems like a difficult problem to estimate the fractional parts of $H_n$. So if you got here by googling for information on that, sorry, this blog post won't be of much help.


[Solution]

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