Re: HSC 2015 4U Marathon
An alternate solution to iii):
Let m be the largest integer such that 2^m =< n.
We must then have 2^m =< n < 2^{m+1}, which implies that 2^m > n/2.
Hence k.2^m > n for any positive integer k larger than 1.
Another way of saying this is that 2^m is the only integer in {1,2,...,n} that is divisible by 2^m.
So, assuming that H_n=N is an integer, we have:
Any sum of fractions can be written as a single fraction with denominator the LCM of the denominators of the individual fractions, and the largest power of 2 that occurs in the denominators on the LHS is 2^{m-1}. This implies that
with b odd.
Multiplying both sides by
we get an integer on the LHS and a half integer (number of the form k +`1/2) on the RHS.
This contradiction completes the proof.