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The wikipedia entry on Ramanujan contains the following passage:

One of his remarkable capabilities was the rapid solution for problems. He was sharing a room with P. C. Mahalanobis who had a problem, "Imagine that you are on a street with houses marked 1 through n. There is a house in between $(x)$ such that the sum of the house numbers to left of it equals the sum of the house numbers to its right. If $n$ is between $50$ and $500$, what are $n$ and $x$?" This is a bivariate problem with multiple solutions. Ramanujan thought about it and gave the answer with a twist: He gave a continued fraction. The unusual part was that it was the solution to the whole class of problems. Mahalanobis was astounded and asked how he did it. "It is simple. The minute I heard the problem, I knew that the answer was a continued fraction. Which continued fraction, I asked myself. Then the answer came to my mind," Ramanujan replied.

What was the continued fraction, and how did it give all solutions to the problem? Most importantly, how could someone derive such a solution? Do similar problems also have continued fractions that describe all solutions?

This seems like an interesting and powerful method, and I would like to learn more about it.

  • 10
    The problem reduces to a Pell equation whose solutions can be obtained from the continued fraction expansion of $\sqrt{2}$.2012-05-19

3 Answers 3

14

An expansion of Andre's comment into a detailed exposition can be found at http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/Diaries/Puzzles/2009-06.html. It's also at http://www.angelfire.com/ak/ashoksandhya/winners2.html#PUZZANS4.

  • 1
    See also http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/~butcher/miniature/miniature2.pdf an article by John Butcher, where he guesses that Ramanujan was thinking of a (more general type of) continued fraction namely $3 - \cfrac{1}{6 - \cfrac{1}{6 - \cfrac{1}{6 - \dots}}}$.2012-12-13
5

We will use

Theorem 1: If $r\gt0$ is irrational and $\left|\,\frac pq-r\,\right|\le\frac1{2q^2}$ where $(p,q)=1$, then $\frac pq$ is a continued fraction convergent for $r$.

and

Theorem 2: If $\left\{\frac{p_k}{q_k}\right\}$ is the sequence of continued fraction convergents for an irrational $r\gt0$, then $r$ is between $\frac{p_k}{q_k}$ and $\frac{p_{k+1}}{q_{k+1}}$ and $\frac{p_{k+1}}{q_{k+1}}-\frac{p_k}{q_k}=\frac{(-1)^k}{q_{k+1}q_k}$.


The problem can be written as $ \overbrace{\ \frac{x^2-x}2\ }^{\substack{\text{sum of $1$}\\\text{to $x-1$}}}=\overbrace{\frac{n^2+n}2-\frac{x^2+x}2}^\text{sum of $x+1$ to $n$}\tag1 $ which is equivalent to $ 8x^2=(2n+1)^2-1\tag2 $ From $(2)$, we get $\frac{2n+1}x=\sqrt{8+\frac1{x^2}}$; thus, we want an over-estimate for $\sqrt8$ that has an odd numerator. Furthermore, $(2)$ implies $ \begin{align} \frac{2n+1}x-\sqrt8 &=\sqrt{8+\tfrac1{x^2}}-\sqrt8\\[9pt] &=\frac{1/x^2}{\sqrt{8+\frac1{x^2}}+\sqrt8}\\ &\le\frac1{2\sqrt8\,x^2}\tag3 \end{align} $ Theorem 1 and inequality $(3)$ say that $\frac{2n+1}x$ needs to be a continued fraction approximant for $\sqrt8$ to satisfy $(2)$.

The continued fraction for $\sqrt8$ is $(2;1,4,1,4,1,\dots)$. The convergents are $ \begin{array}{c|cc} k&0&\color{#C00}{1}&2&\color{#C00}{3}&4&\color{#C00}{5}&\dots\\\hline \frac{p_k}{q_k}&\frac21&\color{#C00}{\frac31}&\frac{14}5&\color{#C00}{\frac{17}6}&\frac{82}{29}&\color{#C00}{\frac{99}{35}}&\dots \end{array}\tag4 $ The repeating continued fraction gives the following numerator/denominator recurrence $ \begin{align} a_{2n}&=4a_{2n-1}+a_{2n-2}\tag{5a}\\ a_{2n+1}&=a_{2n}+a_{2n-1}\tag{5b} \end{align} $ Theorem 2 says that the red terms, the ones with odd indices, are over-estimates. Furthermore, the recurrences $\text{(5a)}$ and $\text{(5b)}$ guarantee that the red terms have odd numerators.

Combining $\text{(5a)}$ and $\text{(5b)}$, we get that the recurrence for the odd numbered numerators and denominators is $ a_{2n+1}=6a_{2n-1}-a_{2n-3}\tag6 $ Thus, we can get the solutions from the odd-indexed terms of $(4)$: $ \begin{array}{c|cc} k&1&3&5&7&9&\dots\\\hline \frac{p_k}{q_k}&\frac31&\frac{17}6&\frac{99}{35}&\frac{577}{204}&\frac{3363}{1189}&\dots\\ \frac{n_k}{x_k}&\frac11&\frac86&\frac{49}{35}&\frac{288}{204}&\frac{1681}{1189}&\dots \end{array}\tag7 $ The pair that has $50\le n\le500$, is $(x,n)=(204,288)$.

Checking: $ \sum_{k=1}^{203}k=20706=\sum_{k=205}^{288}k\tag8 $

2

See Pi Mu Epsilon Journal Vol. 14 # 6 pp 389-97, 2017.
"House Number Puzzle: Solution Through Bifurcation"

A summary from the above Pi Mu Epsilon publication is given below:

Continued Fraction of √2 is: 1, 3/2, 7/5, 17/12, 41/29, 99/70, 239/169 ... The above (x/y) also form solutions to the Pell's equation: x ² −2 y ² = ±1. The house numbers are products of x and y (the solutions to the above Pell's equation): 1*1; 3*2; 7*5; 17*12; 41*29 ... and the total number of houses are provided by x*x and 2*y*y alternatively. Total number of houses: 1*1; 2*2*2; 7*7; 2*12*12; 41*41 ...

For details see the actual publication.