Thursday, 23 January 2014

elementary number theory - highest power of prime p dividing binomm+nn



How to prove the theorem stated here.




Theorem. (Kummer, 1854) Let p be a prime. The highest power of p that divides the binomial coefficient \binom{m+n}{n} is equal to the number of "carries" when adding m and n in base p.




So far, I know if m+n can be expanded in base power as
m+n= a_0 + a_1 p + \dots +a_k p^k

and m have to coefficients \{ b_0 , b_1 , \dots b_i\} and n can be expanded with coefficients \{c_0, c_1 ,\dots , c_j\} in base p then the highest power of prime that divides \binom{m+n}{n} can be expressed as
e = \frac{(b_0 + b_1 + \dots b_i )+ (c_0 + c_1 + \dots c_j )-(a_0 + a_1 + \dots a_k )}{p-1}
It follows from here page number 4. But how does it relate to the number of carries? I am not being able to connect. Perhaps I am not understanding something very fundamental about addition.


Answer



If b_{0} + c_{0} < p, then a_{0} = b_{0} + c_{0}, there are no carries, and the term
b_{0} + c_{0} - a_{0} = 0
does not contribute to your e.




If b_{0} + c_{0} \ge p, then a_{0} = b_{0} + c_{0} - p, and this time b_{0} + c_{0} - a_{0} gives a contribution of p to the numerator of e. Plus, there is a contribution of 1 to a_{1}, so the net contribution to the numerator of e is p -1, and that to e is 1. Repeat.



As mentioned by Jyrki Lahtonen in his comment (which appeared while I was typesetting this answer), you may have propagating carries, but this is the basic argument.


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