Award Date
1-1-2001
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Mathematics
First Committee Member
Gennady Bachman
Number of Pages
26
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to try to answer some of the questions in Dr. Bachman's paper "On Divisibility Properties of Certain Multinomial Coefficients". First we let {ai} be any sequence (finite or infinite) of positive integers such that i1ai ≤1 . It is clear that n!&sqbl0;na1 &sqbr0;!&sqbl0;na2&sqbr0; !&sqbl0;na3&sqbr0;!&ldots; is an integer because it is a multiple of a certain multinomial coefficient. We let fan=n! Ln&sqbl0;n a1&sqbr0;!&sqbl0;na 2&sqbr0;!&sqbl0;na3 &sqbr0;!&ldots; where L(n) = lcm(1, 2, 3, .., n). It is easy to show that fa(n) is integer-valued. In particular, we would like to study the sequence a1 = b1 = 2 and ak+1 = bk+1 = Pki=1 bi + 1. The first goal of my thesis was to prove the following conjecture by computer for all m up to 100; Conjecture 1. For every positive integer m there exists a number n0 such that m divides f( n) for all n > n0 where fn=n!L n&sqbl0;n2&sqbr0; !&sqbl0;n3&sqbr0;!&sqbl0;n 7&sqbr0;!&ldots I did this by using Theorem 1 of Dr. Bachman's paper; Theorem 1. pv|| f(n) if and only if there are exactly v pairs of integers (k,l),k,l ≥ 1, such that Rk&parl0;&sqbl0;npl &sqbr0;&parr0;Bk< Rk+1&parl0;&sqbl0;npl &sqbr0;&parr0;Bk+1 with Rk(m) defined as m ≡ Rk(m) mod Bk and 0 < Rk( m) ≤ Bk where Bk = bk+1 - 1; The second part of my thesis is concerned with attacking Conjecture 1 as it was written in Dr. Bachman's paper. Before we can restate Conjecture 1 we need to define the base p expansion of a positive integer. We write nj = a0pj + a1pj -1 +..+ aj where 0 ≤ ai ≤ p - 1. Now we restate Conjecture 1 as Conjecture 2; Conjecture 2. Let {nj} be defined above. Then there exist infinitely many integers j for which the inequality Rk&parl0;nj&parr0;B k
Keywords
Coefficients; Conjectures; Multinomial; Questions
Controlled Subject
Mathematics; Computer science
File Format
File Size
696.32 KB
Degree Grantor
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Language
English
Permissions
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Repository Citation
Kessler, Troy Richard, "Questions and conjectures about multinomial coefficients" (2001). UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations. 1251.
http://dx.doi.org/10.25669/yqep-s2k9
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