Egyptian fraction

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Ancient Egypt[edit]

For more information on this subject, see Egyptian numerals, Eye of Horus, and Egyptian mathematics.
Eye of Horus






Z1 Z1 Z1
= \frac{1}{3}
= \frac{1}{10}


= \frac{1}{2}
= \frac{2}{3}
= \frac{3}{4}


Calculation methods[edit]

Modern historians of mathematics have studied the Rhind papyrus and other ancient sources in an attempt to discover the methods the Egyptians used in calculating with Egyptian fractions. In particular, study in this area has concentrated on understanding the tables of expansions for numbers of the form 2/n in the Rhind papyrus. Although these expansions can generally be described as algebraic identities, the methods used by the Egyptians may not correspond directly to these identities. Additionally, the expansions in the table do not match any single identity; rather, different identities match the expansions for prime and for composite denominators, and more than one identity fits the numbers of each type:

  • For larger prime denominators, an expansion of the form 2/p = 1/A + (2Ap)/Ap was used, where A is a number with many divisors (such as a practical number) between p/2 and p. The remaining term (2Ap)/Ap was expanded by representing the number (2Ap)/Ap as a sum of divisors of A and forming a fraction d/Ap for each such divisor d in this sum (Hultsch 1895, Bruins 1957). As an example, Ahmes' expansion 1/24 + 1/111 + 1/296 for 2/37 fits this pattern with A = 24 and (2Ap)/Ap = 11 = 3 + 8, as 1/24 + 1/111 + 1/296 = 1/24 + 3/(24 × 37) + 8/(24 × 37). There may be many different expansions of this type for a given p; however, as K. S. Brown observed, the expansion chosen by the Egyptians was often the one that caused the largest denominator to be as small as possible, among all expansions fitting this pattern.
  • For composite denominators, factored as p×q, one can expand 2/pq using the identity 2/pq = 1/aq + 1/apq, where a = (p+1)/2. For instance, applying this method for pq = 21 gives p = 3, q = 7, and a = (3+1)/2 = 2, producing the expansion 2/21 = 1/14 + 1/42 from the Rhind papyrus. Some authors have preferred to write this expansion as 2/A × A/pq, where A = p+1 (Gardner 2002); replacing the second term of this product by p/pq + 1/pq, applying the distributive law to the product, and simplifying leads to an expression equivalent to the first expansion described here. This method appears to have been used for many of the composite numbers in the Rhind papyrus (Gillings 1982, Gardner 2002), but there are exceptions, notably 2/35, 2/91, and 2/95 (Knorr 1982).
  • One can also expand 2/pq as 1/pr + 1/qr, where r = (p+q)/2. For instance, Ahmes expands 2/35 = 1/30 + 1/42, where p = 5, q = 7, and r = (5+7)/2 = 6. Later scribes used a more general form of this expansion, n/pq = 1/pr + 1/qr, where r =(p + q)/n, which works when p + q is a multiple of n (Eves 1953).
  • For some other composite denominators, the expansion for 2/pq has the form of an expansion for 2/q with each denominator multiplied by p. For instance, 95=5×19, and 2/19 = 1/12 + 1/76 + 1/114 (as can be found using the method for primes with A = 12), so 2/95 = 1/(5×12) + 1/(5×76) + 1/(5×114) = 1/60 + 1/380 + 1/570 (Eves 1953). This expression can be simplified as 1/380 + 1/570 = 1/228 but the Rhind papyrus uses the unsimplified form.
  • The final (prime) expansion in the Rhind papyrus, 2/101, does not fit any of these forms, but instead uses an expansion 2/p = 1/p + 1/2p + 1/3p + 1/6p that may be applied regardless of the value of p. That is, 2/101 = 1/101 + 1/202 + 1/303 + 1/606. A related expansion was also used in the Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll for several cases.


Comparing the size of some fractions[edit]

Egyptian fractions sometimes make it easier to compare the sizes of a pair of fractions.[1] For example, if one wants to find out whether 4/5 is larger than 3/4, one could convert them to Egyptian fractions:

  • 4/5 = 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/20
  • 3/4 = 1/2 + 1/4

Hence, 4/5 is larger by 1/20 .

Similarly, comparing 3/11 and 2/7:

  • 3/11 = 1/4 + 1/44
  • 2/7  = 1/4 + 1/28

As 1/44 < 1/28, this implies that 3/11 < 2/7 .

Equally distributing objects[edit]

Egyptian fractions can help in dividing a number of objects into equal shares.[1] For example, if one wants to divide 5 pizzas equally among 8 diners, the Egyptian fraction

  • 5/8 = 1/2 + 1/8

means that each diner gets half a pizza plus another eighth of a pizza, e.g. by splitting 4 pizzas into 8 halves, and the remaining pizza into 8 eighths.

Similarly, although one could divide 13 pizzas among 12 diners by giving each diner one pizza and splitting the remaining pizza into 12 parts (perhaps destroying it), one could note that

  • 13/12 = 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4

and split 6 pizzas into halves, 4 into thirds and the remaining 3 into quarters, and then give each diner one half, one third and one quarter.

Medieval mathematics[edit]

For more information on this subject, see Liber Abaci and Greedy algorithm for Egyptian fractions.

Egyptian fraction notation continued to be used in Greek times and into the Middle Ages (Struik 1967), despite complaints as early as Ptolemy's Almagest about the clumsiness of the notation compared to alternatives such as the Babylonian base-60 notation. An important text of medieval mathematics, the Liber Abaci (1202) of Leonardo of Pisa (more commonly known as Fibonacci), provides some insight into the uses of Egyptian fractions in the Middle Ages, and introduces topics that continue to be important in modern mathematical study of these series.

The primary subject of the Liber Abaci is calculations involving decimal and vulgar fraction notation, which eventually replaced Egyptian fractions. Fibonacci himself used a complex notation for fractions involving a combination of a mixed radix notation with sums of fractions. Many of the calculations throughout Fibonacci's book involve numbers represented as Egyptian fractions, and one section of this book (Sigler 2002, chapter II.7) provides a list of methods for conversion of vulgar fractions to Egyptian fractions. If the number is not already a unit fraction, the first method in this list is to attempt to split the numerator into a sum of divisors of the denominator; this is possible whenever the denominator is a practical number, and Liber Abaci includes tables of expansions of this type for the practical numbers 6, 8, 12, 20, 24, 60, and 100.

The next several methods involve algebraic identities such as \tfrac{a}{ab-1}=\tfrac{1}{b}+\tfrac{1}{b(ab-1)}. For instance, Fibonacci represents the fraction \tfrac{8}{11} by splitting the numerator into a sum of two numbers, each of which divides one plus the denominator: \tfrac{8}{11}=\tfrac{6}{11}+\tfrac{2}{11}. Fibonacci applies the algebraic identity above to each these two parts, producing the expansion \tfrac{8}{11}=\tfrac{1}{2}+\tfrac{1}{22}+\tfrac{1}{6}+\tfrac{1}{66}. Fibonacci describes similar methods for denominators that are two or three less than a number with many factors.

In the rare case that these other methods all fail, Fibonacci suggests a greedy algorithm for computing Egyptian fractions, in which one repeatedly chooses the unit fraction with the smallest denominator that is no larger than the remaining fraction to be expanded: that is, in more modern notation, we replace a fraction x/y by the expansion

\frac{x}{y}=\frac{1}{\lceil y/x\rceil}+\frac{(-y)\,\bmod\, x}{y\lceil y/x\rceil},

where \lceil \ldots \rceil represents the ceiling function.

Fibonacci suggests switching to another method after the first such expansion, but he also gives examples in which this greedy expansion was iterated until a complete Egyptian fraction expansion was constructed: \tfrac{4}{13}=\tfrac{1}{4}+\tfrac{1}{18}+\tfrac{1}{468} and \tfrac{17}{29}=\tfrac{1}{2}+\tfrac{1}{12}+\tfrac{1}{348}.

As later mathematicians showed, each greedy expansion reduces the numerator of the remaining fraction to be expanded, so this method always terminates with a finite expansion. However, compared to ancient Egyptian expansions or to more modern methods, this method may produce expansions that are quite long, with large denominators, and Fibonacci himself noted the awkwardness of the expansions produced by this method. For instance, the greedy method expands


while other methods lead to the much better expansion


Sylvester's sequence 2, 3, 7, 43, 1807, ... can be viewed as generated by an infinite greedy expansion of this type for the number one, where at each step we choose the denominator \lfloor y/x\rfloor+1 instead of \lceil y/x\rceil, and sometimes Fibonacci's greedy algorithm is attributed to Sylvester.

After his description of the greedy algorithm, Fibonacci suggests yet another method, expanding a fraction a/b by searching for a number c having many divisors, with b/2 < c < b, replacing a/b by ac/bc, and expanding ac as a sum of divisors of bc, similar to the method proposed by Hultsch and Bruins to explain some of the expansions in the Rhind papyrus.

Modern number theory[edit]

For more information on this subject, see Erdős–Graham conjecture, Znám's problem, and Engel expansion.

Modern number theorists have studied many different problems related to Egyptian fractions, including problems of bounding the length or maximum denominator in Egyptian fraction representations, finding expansions of certain special forms or in which the denominators are all of some special type, the termination of various methods for Egyptian fraction expansion, and showing that expansions exist for any sufficiently dense set of sufficiently smooth numbers.

  • The Erdős–Graham conjecture in combinatorial number theory states that, if the unit fractions are partitioned into finitely many subsets, then one of the subsets can be used to form an Egyptian fraction representation of one. That is, for every r > 0, and every r-coloring of the integers greater than one, there is a finite monochromatic subset S of these integers such that
\sum_{n\in S}1/n = 1.
The conjecture was proven in 2003 by Ernest S. Croot, III.
\sum\frac1{x_i} + \prod\frac1{x_i}=1.
For instance, the primary pseudoperfect number 1806 is the product of the prime numbers 2, 3, 7, and 43, and gives rise to the Egyptian fraction 1 = 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/7 + 1/43 + 1/1806.
  • Egyptian fractions are normally defined as requiring all denominators to be distinct, but this requirement can be relaxed to allow repeated denominators. However, this relaxed form of Egyptian fractions does not allow for any number to be represented using fewer fractions, as any expansion with repeated fractions can be converted to an Egyptian fraction of equal or smaller length by repeated application of the replacement
if k is odd, or simply by replacing 1/k+1/k by 2/k if k is even. This result was first proven by Takenouchi (1921).
  • Graham and Jewett (see Wagon 1991 and Beeckmans 1993) proved that it is similarly possible to convert expansions with repeated denominators to (longer) Egyptian fractions, via the replacement
This method can lead to long expansions with large denominators, such as
Botts (1967) had originally used this replacement technique to show that any rational number has Egyptian fraction representations with arbitrarily large minimum denominators.
  • Any fraction x/y has an Egyptian fraction representation in which the maximum denominator is bounded by
O\left(\frac{y\log^2 y}{\log\log y}\right)
(Tenenbaum & Yokota 1990) and a representation with at most
O\left(\sqrt{\log y}\right)
terms (Vose 1985).
  • Graham (1964) characterized the numbers that can be represented by Egyptian fractions in which all denominators are nth powers. In particular, a rational number q can be represented as an Egyptian fraction with square denominators if and only if q lies in one of the two half-open intervals
  • Martin (1999) showed that any rational number has very dense expansions, using a constant fraction of the denominators up to N for any sufficiently large N.
  • Engel expansion, sometimes called an Egyptian product, is a form of Egyptian fraction expansion in which each denominator is a multiple of the previous one:
In addition, the sequence of multipliers ai is required to be nondecreasing. Every rational number has a finite Engel expansion, while irrational numbers have an infinite Engel expansion.
  • Anshel & Goldfeld (1991) study numbers that have multiple distinct Egyptian fraction representations with the same number of terms and the same product of denominators; for instance, one of the examples they supply is
Unlike the ancient Egyptians, they allow denominators to be repeated in these expansions. They apply their results for this problem to the characterization of free products of Abelian groups by a small number of numerical parameters: the rank of the commutator subgroup, the number of terms in the free product, and the product of the orders of the factors.

Open problems[edit]

For more information on this subject, see odd greedy expansion and Erdős–Straus conjecture.

Some notable problems remain unsolved with regard to Egyptian fractions, despite considerable effort by mathematicians.

exist for every n? It is known to be true for all n < 1014, and for all but a vanishingly small fraction of possible values of n, but the general truth of the conjecture remains unknown.
  • It is unknown whether an odd greedy expansion exists for every fraction with an odd denominator. If Fibonacci's greedy method is modified so that it always chooses the smallest possible odd denominator, under what conditions does this modified algorithm produce a finite expansion? An obvious necessary condition is that the starting fraction x/y have an odd denominator y, and it is conjectured but not known that this is also a sufficient condition. It is known (Breusch 1954; Stewart 1954) that every x/y with odd y has an expansion into distinct odd unit fractions, constructed using a different method than the greedy algorithm.
  • It is possible to use brute-force search algorithms to find the Egyptian fraction representation of a given number with the fewest possible terms (Stewart 1992) or minimizing the largest denominator; however, such algorithms can be quite inefficient. The existence of polynomial time algorithms for these problems, or more generally the computational complexity of such problems, remains unknown.

Guy (2004) describes these problems in more detail and lists numerous additional open problems.


External links[edit]