Faulhaber's Theorem on Power Sums

Let ``Faulhaber's formula'' refer to an expression for the sum of powers of integers written with terms in n(n+1)/2. Initially, the author used Faulhaber's formula to explain why odd Bernoulli numbers are equal to zero. Next, Cereceda gave alternate proofs of that result and then proved the converse, if odd Bernoulli numbers are equal to zero then we can derive Faulhaber's formula. Here, the original author will give a new proof of the converse using the method of partial sum...

In this note we show a simple formula for the coefficients of the polynomial associated with the sums of powers of the terms of an arbitrary arithmetic progression. This formula consists of a double sum involving only ordinary binomial coefficients and binomial powers. Arguably, this is the simplest formula that can probably be found for the said coefficients. Furthermore, we give an explicit formula for the Bernoulli polynomials involving the Stirling numbers of the first an...

About four centuries ago, Johann Faulhaber developed formulas for the power sum $1^n + 2^n + \cdots + m^n$ in terms of $m(m+1)/2$. The resulting polynomials are called the Faulhaber polynomials. We first give a short survey of Faulhaber's work and discuss the results of Jacobi (1834) and the less known ones of Schr\"oder (1867), which already imply some results published afterwards. We then show, for suitable odd integers $n$, the following properties of the Faulhaber polynom...

Early 17th-century mathematical publications of Johann Faulhaber contain some remarkable theorems, such as the fact that the $r$-fold summation of $1^m,2^m,...,n^m$ is a polynomial in $n(n+r)$ when $m$ is a positive odd number. The present paper explores a computation-based approach by which Faulhaber may well have discovered such results, and solves a 360-year-old riddle that Faulhaber presented to his readers. It also shows that similar results hold when we express the sums...

The problem of finding formulas for sums of powers of natural numbers has been of interest to mathematicians for many centuries. Among these is Faulhaber's well-known formula expressing the power sums as polynomials whose coefficients involve Bernoulli numbers. In this paper we give an elementary proof that the sum of $p$-th powers of the first $n$ natural numbers can be expressed as a polynomial in $n$ of degree $p+1$. We also prove a novel identity involving Bernoulli numbe...

This paper sets the groundwork for the consideration of families of recursively defined polynomials and rational functions capable of describing the Bernoulli numbers. These families of functions arise from various recursive definitions of the Bernoulli numbers. The derivation of these recursive definitions is shown here using the original application of the Bernoulli numbers: sums of powers of positive integers, i.e., Faulhaber's problem. Since two of the three recursive for...

For finite sums of non-negative powers of arithmetic progressions the generating functions (ordinary and exponential ones) for given powers are computed. This leads to a two parameter generalization of Stirling and Eulerian numbers. A direct generalization of Bernoulli numbers and their polynomials follows. On the way to find the Faulhaber formula for these sums of powers in terms of generalized Bernoulli polynomials one is led to a one parameter generalization of Bernoulli n...

In this note we will use Faulhaber's Formula to explain why the odd Bernoulli numbers are equal to zero.

In this note we consider the theorem established in arXiv:1912.07171 concerning the sums of powers of the first $n$ positive integers, $S_k = 1^k + 2^k + \cdots + n^k$, and show that it can be used to demonstrate the classical theorem of Faulhaber for both cases of odd and even $k$.

For any two arithmetic functions $f,g$ let $\bullet$ be the commutative and associative arithmetic convolution $(f\bullet g)(k):=\sum_{m=0}^k \left( \begin{array}{c} k m \end{array} \right)f(m)g(k-m)$ and for any $n\in\mathbb{N},$ $f^n=f\bullet \cdots\bullet f$ be $n-$fold product of $f\in \mathcal{S}.$ For any $x\in\mathbb{C},$ let $\mathcal{S}_0=e$ be the multiplicative identity of the ring $(\mathcal{S},\bullet,+)$ and $\mathcal{S}_x(k):=\frac{\mathcal{B}_{x+1}(k...