Welcome

Art of Numbers
CCC-801

Instructor : Neha Gupta

Email id : neha.gupta@snu.edu.in
Office : A-111(F)
 Art of Numbers : Overview

In this course we take up

• Some unexplored patterns that exist in ‘nature’,
study them and see some of their applications.
• Some elementary concepts of Number Theory, and
play around.
• And, representation of numbers in various forms.
 Detailed Syllabus
Fun with Numbers (20 lectures)
• Moessner’s Magic
• Golden Ratio
• Pascal Triangle, Binomial Theorem
• Fibonacci Sequence
• Elementary concepts in Number Theory
• Algorithms and applications.
 A few references
Books:
• The Book of Numbers by John Horton Conway, Richard K. Guy. 2nd edition,
Copernicus.
• The Heart of Mathematics: An Invitation to Effective Thinking by Edward B. Burger
and Michael Starbird. 3rd edition, Wiley.
• Elementary Number Theory by David Burton.
Journal articles:
• A. Moessner, 1951: Eine Bemerkung über die Potenzen der natürlichen Zahlen. Sitz.
Bayer. Akad. Wiss., Math-Nat Kla. S.-B. 3, 29.
• O. Perron, 1951: Beweis des Moessnerschen Satzes. Sitz. Bayer. Akad. Wiss., Math-
Nat Kla. 4:31–34.
• C. T. Long, 1982: Strike it out–add it up. The Mathematical Gazette, 66(438):273–
277.
 Assessment Scheme

Components %
Class Tests 20
Assignments 40
Final Quiz 40
Total 100
 Plan for the Course
20 lectures = 20 hours (9th Jan - 25th Feb 2023)
Lectures : interactive classes and mostly on Slides. These will be
uploaded on BB. Use of white board will be mainly for proofs, or
showing some calculations. Board work may not be a part of slides,
so if you want, you can take notes.
Assignments : Hardcopy of the assignment has to be submitted on
the due date. Late submissions get a ZERO.
Quiz : One Final Quiz for the entire course towards the end of the
semester., 2023
End of Course :
Lets get started
Yayyyyy!!!
Here, step size = 2
Here, step size = 3
 Here, step size = 4

Moessner’s theorem says that the final sequence is 1n , 2n , 3 n, …

where n = step size.
 History
• This construction is an interesting combinatorial curiosity
that has attracted much attention over the years.
Moessner’s theorem was never proved by its eponymous
discoverer.
• 1951 A.Moessner conjures it: (Works for all n ϵ N)
• 1952 O.Perron proves it
• 1952 I.Paasche and H.Salie generalize it
• 1966 Long presents an alternative proof (with further
generalizing it)
• 2010 Hinze, Rutten & Niqui present new proofs of the
theorem.
So far, the initial step size n was kept constant. What happens if we increase it in each step?
Let us repeat the construction starting with a step size of one and increasing the step size by
one each time.

…, K+1C2 , …
( Paasche’s Theorem )
Some examples following the thm :
• The proof of the Moessner’s and Paasche’s theorem can be
found on a recent paper titled

“On Moessner’s Theorem “ by Dexter Kozen and Alexandra

Silva

• Link :
https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~kozen/papers/Moessner.pdf
Second generalization : Let us now increment the increment by one in each
step.

Thus incrementing the step size by 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . in successive steps

crossing out 1, 4, 10, 20, . . . , k+2C3 , …

3 4 6 15 ... 20
Step 1 1 +2 = 3 3 +3 = 6 6 + 4 = 10
Size

Step size increasing by 1, 2, 3, …

• Let us now increment the increment by one in each step, thus incrementing the step
size by 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . in successive steps, crossing out 1, 4, 10, 20, . . . , k+2C3 , . . .

90 105
362

• The final sequence consists of the super factorials

• 2, 12, 288, . . . = 2!1!, 3!2!1!, 4!3!2!1!, . . . = 2!!, 3!!, 4!!, . . . .

• The generalization of Moessner’s theorem that handles these cases is one of the
particular cases of Paasche’s theorem.
 Summary :
• Moessner’s theorem describes a procedure for generating a sequence of n
integer sequences that lead unexpectedly to the sequence of nth powers 1n ,
2n , 3n , . . . .
• Paasche’s theorem is a generalization of Moessner’s; by varying the
parameters of the procedure, one can obtain the sequence of factorials 1!,
2!, 3!, . . . or the sequence of super factorials 1!!, 2!!, 3!!,
• Long’s theorem generalizes Moessner’s in another direction, providing a
procedure to generate the sequence a · 1 n-1 ,(a + d) · 2n-1 , (a + 2d) · 3n-1 , . . .
• Proofs of these results in the literature are typically based on combinatorics
of binomial coefficients or calculational scans.
Finish
