Counting the Positive Rationals: A Brief Survey

In the present article, modeling certain rational numbers, that are represented in terms of Cantor series, are described. The statements on relations between digits in the representations of rational numbers by Cantor series (for the case of an arbitrary sequence $(q_k)$) are proved.

The First Hilbert problem is studied in this paper by applying two instruments: a new methodology distinguishing between mathematical objects and mathematical languages used to describe these objects; and a new numeral system allowing one to express different infinite numbers and to use these numbers for measuring infinite sets. Several counting systems are taken into consideration. It is emphasized in the paper that different mathematical languages can describe mathematical ...

Resolving a conjecture of Zhi-Wei Sun, we prove that every rational number can be represented as a sum of distinct unit fractions whose denominators are practical numbers. The same method applies to allowed denominators that are closed under multiplication by two and include a multiple of every positive integer, including the odious numbers, evil numbers, Hardy-Ramanujan numbers, Jordan-Polya numbers, and fibbinary numbers.

In this expository article, the real numbers are defined as infinite decimals. After defining an ordering relation and the arithmetic operations, it is shown that the set of real numbers is a complete ordered field. It is further shown that any complete ordered field is isomorphic to the constructed set of real numbers.

An Egyptian fraction is a sum of distinct unit fractions (reciprocals of positive integers). We show that every rational number has Egyptian fraction representations where the number of terms is of the same order of magnitude as the largest denominator, improving a result from an earlier paper to best-possible form. We also settle, in best-possible form, the related problem of how small M_t(r) can be such that there is an Egyptian fraction representation of r with exactly t t...

In the 16th century, Simon Stevin initiated a modern approach to decimal representation of measuring numbers, marking a transition from the discrete arithmetic practised by the Greeks to the arithmetic of the continuum taken for granted today. However, how to perform arithmetic directly on infinite decimals remains a long-standing problem, which has seen the popular degeometrisation of real numbers since the first constructions were published in around 1872. Our article is de...

In this note, we show that each positive rational number can be written as $\varphi(m^2)/\varphi(n^2)$, where $\varphi$ is Euler's totient function and $m$ and $n$ are positive integers.

It is shown that any denumerable list L to which Cantor's diagonal method was applied is incomplete. However, this doesn't allow us to affirm that the cardinality of the real numbers of the interval [0, 1] is greater than the cardinality of the finite natural numbers. Paper withdrawn (its essential part is included in the version 3 of math.GM/0108119).

For more than a century, Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers has played a pivotal role in set theory, with ramifications that extend to many areas of mathematics. This article extends earlier findings with a fresh look at the critical facts of Cantor's theory: i) Cantor's widely renowned Diagonalization Argument (CDA) is fully refuted by a set of counter-examples that expose the fallacy of this proof. ii) The logical inconsistencies of CDA are revisited, exposing the short...

We outline some simple prescriptions to define a distribution on the set $\mathbb{Q}_0$ of all the rational numbers in $[0,1]$, and we then explore both a few properties of these distributions, and the possibility of making these rational numbers asymptotically equiprobable in a suitable sense. In particular it will be shown that in the said limit -- albeit no uniform distribution can be properly defined on $\mathbb{Q}_0$ -- the probability allotted to a single $q\in\mathbb{Q...