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I was reading about irreducible fractions a few days ago, I had a question that I couldn't answer on my own. What if we are trying to find the sum of more than two irreducible fractions? For example, what if we are trying to add $9$ irreducible fractions, is it even possible for their sum to be an integer? I thought of an example that I would like to post here. The question is to answer whether the sum of all these $9$ irreducible fractions is an integer or not. Is it even possible to solve this question?

$$\frac{1}{p} + \frac{q}{p} + \frac{q^2}{p} + \frac{1}{p^2} + \frac{q}{p^2} + \frac{q^2}{p^2} + \frac{1}{p^3} + \frac{q}{p^3} + \frac{q^2}{p^3}$$

where $(q,p)=1$, $q,p = 2n+1$. That is, $q$ and $p$ are coprime and they are both odd numbers. Also assume that $p$ is a prime number.

QC_QAOA
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  • Hello :) For $p=q=1$ it is an integer. – Jochen Oct 05 '21 at 17:24
  • In fact $p=1$ for any $q$ gives an integer. – Eric Towers Oct 05 '21 at 17:25
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    Try $p=7$ and $q=361$ – QC_QAOA Oct 05 '21 at 17:26
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    @QC_QAOA How do you come up with that example? Did you brute force with a computer or is there some clever way you could put in an answer? – quarague Oct 05 '21 at 17:29
  • @quarague Brute force, nothing special. I will say though that I am only finding solutions for $p=6k+1$ for some $k$ (except for $p=25$ for some reason). I might write up an answer if there is anything interesting there – QC_QAOA Oct 05 '21 at 17:31
  • I have seen some people saying that if p is 1 then it will give an integer so I have edited the question to clarify that P must be prime. This will make the question a little bit more interesting. – Tony Kuria Oct 05 '21 at 17:46
  • unfortunately, p = 7 and q = 361 does not work – Tony Kuria Oct 05 '21 at 17:53
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    Is there a typo somewhere after one of the edits? Because plugging $p=7$ and $q=361$ into the fraction above gives $21717$ – QC_QAOA Oct 05 '21 at 17:58
  • You are right. using p =7 and q = 361 gives us an integer 21717. Now how did you arrive at that answer? Please could you write an official answer so that everyone can understand how to solve such a problem? Thank you – Tony Kuria Oct 05 '21 at 18:14
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    Sure, I originally found it by brute force but there is enough interesting math in the background to be worth a full write up. – QC_QAOA Oct 05 '21 at 18:16
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    You can write the expression as $$\frac{(1+q+q^2)(p^2+p+1)}{p^3}$$ hence $$p^3\mid 1+q+q^2$$ is a necessary and sufficient condition. – Peter Oct 05 '21 at 18:36

1 Answers1

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So I think I have found a complete answer for the case even when $p$ is not prime. There are infinite solutions for $p$ if every prime that divides $p$ is of the form $6n+1$. To show that this is true, set $q$ to be

$$q=\frac{1}{2} \left(\sqrt{4 a p^3-3}-1\right)$$

where $a$ is a natural number such that the above expression is integral. To show that such an $a$ must exist, first note that the expression inside the square root is odd and thus it suffices to show that there exists $a$ such that

$$4ap^3-3=s^2$$

for some natural number $s$. Note for later that this $s$ (if it exists) will always be odd. But this is a simple arithmetic progression which has a solution if and only

$$s^2\equiv -3\ (\text{mod }4p^3)$$

(in fact, it will have infinite solutions). To show that this is always the case, first note that

$$1\equiv -3\ (\text{mod }4)$$

Second, we must show that $-3$ is a quadratic residue of every prime in the prime factorization of $p$. But by our assumption these primes have the form $r=6n+1$. Then by Euler's criterion the equation

$$s^2\equiv -3\ (\text{mod }6n+1)$$

has a solution if and only if

$$\left(\dfrac{-3}{6n+1}\right)=1$$

(where $\left(\dfrac{a}{p}\right)$ is the Legendre symbol). Now, if $n=2m$ is even we have

$$6n+1=12m+1$$

and therefore

$$\left(\dfrac{-3}{12m+1}\right)=\left(\dfrac{-1}{12m+1}\right)\left(\dfrac{3}{12m+1}\right)=1\cdot 1=1$$

If $n=2m+1$ then

$$6n+1=12m+7$$

and therefore

$$\left(\dfrac{-3}{12m+7}\right)=\left(\dfrac{-1}{12m+7}\right)\left(\dfrac{3}{12m+7}\right)=(-1)\cdot (-1)=1$$

Either way, we conclude there are infinite integers $a$ such that $q$ is integral.

Next, we must show that $\text{gcd}(q,p)=1$. To do this, we will show there are integers $n,m$ (different from $n$ and $m$ above) such that

$$nq+mp-1=0$$

From above, we know that there exists odd $s$ such that

$$4ap^3-3=s^2$$

Thus, define

$$n=-\frac{s+1}{2}$$

$$m=ap^2$$

Then we have

$$nq+mp-1=-\frac{s+1}{4} \left(\sqrt{4 a p^3-3}-1\right)+ap^3-1$$

Substituting $s^2=4ap^3-3$ then gives us

$$=-\frac{s+1}{4} \left(s-1\right)+\frac{s^2-1}{4}=0$$

Having shown $p$ and $q$ are relatively prime, the last thing to do is show the original fraction in question is actually an integer. Plugging in our $p$ and $q$ and simplifying gives us a final result of $a(1+p+p^2)$ as desired.

To begin showing that these are the only solutions, note that if $p=3r$ for some $r$ then there are no solutions since

$$1+q+q^2\not\equiv 0\ (\text{mod }27)$$

for any $q\in\{0,1,...,26\}$ which implies $p^3\not|(1+q+q^2)$

Finally, if $p$ has a prime factor of the form $6n-1$, then $p^3\not |(1+q+q^2)$ (see answer to this question for reasoning).

QC_QAOA
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  • Thank you so much for giving a detailed answer to the question. I am sure it will benefit a lot of people. What if P is a prime of the type 1 (mod 4), does this equation still have a solution? I am asking because 1 mod 4 prime is a famous type of prime for many mathematicians, it seems to pop up everywhere in number theory. Thank you – Tony Kuria Oct 06 '21 at 02:39
  • If it's also of the form $6n+1$. For example $13$ – QC_QAOA Oct 06 '21 at 03:19
  • Hi, I am wondering where did you get this equation from? It is the very first equation you wrote. q=1/2(sqrt(4ap^3−3)−1) – Tony Kuria Oct 06 '21 at 16:13
  • I solved $1+q+q^2=ap^3$ – QC_QAOA Oct 06 '21 at 16:21
  • I am curious, I have noticed something about the value of q. q is 361 and yet 361 is a perfect square. 361 = 19×19. Is the value of q always a perfect square or not? – Tony Kuria Oct 07 '21 at 10:35
  • Also is there any other properties of "a" that we can deduce from all the information given apart from the obvious one that "a" must be odd? Or do we have to use a computer to crunch through all odd numbers to get "a"? – Tony Kuria Oct 07 '21 at 10:58