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Odd run sums and fractions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2025

Ron Knott*
Affiliation:
92 Pennine Road, Horwich, Bolton, BL6 7HW e-mail: ronknott@mac.com

Extract

A series of consecutive odd numbers has interesting properties useful for classroom investigation [1]. This Article was inspired by the series of fractions for ${{1}\over{2}}$ using only sums of consecutive odd numbers

$$\frac{1}{3} = \frac{{1 + 3}}{{5 + 7}} = \frac{{1 + 3 + 5}}{{7 + 9 + 11}} = {\text{ }} \ldots {\text{ }} = \frac{{1 + 3 + {\text{ }} \ldots {\text{ }} + (2n - 3) + (2n - 1)}}{{(2n + 1) + (2n + 3) + {\text{ }} \ldots {\text{ }} + (2n + (2n - 1))}}.$$

Type
Articles
Copyright
© The Authors, 2025 Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Mathematical Association

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Footnotes

*

Visiting Teaching Fellow, Mathematics Department, University of Surrey

References

Sangwin, C., Sums of the first n odd integers, Math. Gaz. 107 (March 2023)pp. 1024.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickson, L. E., History of the theory of numbers: Vol 1 Divisibility and primality Dover (2005), ch XIV, p. 357.Google Scholar
Sloane, N. T., On-line encyclopedia of integer sequences at https://oeis.org Google Scholar
Wang, E. T. H., Problem 1717, Crux Math (1993) p. 30.Google Scholar
Knott, R., Odd runs and their sums, accessed November 2024 at https://r-knott.surrey.ac.uk/runsums/oddrunsums.html Google Scholar