Comments on: Erreurs de mathématiciens http://bit-player.org/2006/erreurs-de-mathematiciens An amateur's outlook on computation and mathematics. Fri, 29 Aug 2008 05:18:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.2 Comment on Erreurs de mathématiciens by: Kevin O'Bryant http://bit-player.org/2006/erreurs-de-mathematiciens#comment-1232 Mon, 04 Dec 2006 08:33:51 +0000 http://bit-player.org/2006/erreurs-de-mathematiciens#comment-1232 The most egregious wrong turn that comes to mind are egyptian fractions: apparently, in ancient Egypt fractions were written as a list of integers whose reciprocals add to the desired quantity, with a premium on doing so without repeating any. For example, 3/7 could be written as (7,7,7), but even better is (4,6,84). It's still an active area of "recreational" math, but if the problem was to make fractions work, it was an awful solution. As far as I know, it's possible the Egyptians just used it as recreation, too, though. Here's one of many unsolved problems concerning egyptian fractions: Is the equation 4/n=1/x+1/y+1/z solvable in positive integers for all n>1? The most egregious wrong turn that comes to mind are egyptian fractions: apparently, in ancient Egypt fractions were written as a list of integers whose reciprocals add to the desired quantity, with a premium on doing so without repeating any. For example, 3/7 could be written as (7,7,7), but even better is (4,6,84).

It’s still an active area of “recreational” math, but if the problem was to make fractions work, it was an awful solution. As far as I know, it’s possible the Egyptians just used it as recreation, too, though.

Here’s one of many unsolved problems concerning egyptian fractions: Is the equation 4/n=1/x+1/y+1/z solvable in positive integers for all n>1?

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