Friday, 23 March 2007

nt.number theory - Is there a "finitary" solution to the Basel problem?

Gabor Toth's Glimpses of Algebra and Geometry contains the following beautiful proof (perhaps I should say "interpretation") of the formula displaystylefracpi4=1frac13+frac15mp..., which I don't think I've ever seen before. Given a non-negative integer r, let N(r) be the number of ordered pairs (a,b)inmathbbZ2 such that a2+b2ler2, i.e. the number of lattice points in the ball of radius r. Then if r2(n) is the number of ordered pairs (a,b)inmathbbZ2 such that a2+b2=n, it follows that N(r2)=1+r2(1)+...+r2(r2).



On the other hand, once one has characterized the primes which are a sums of squares, it's not hard to show that r2(n)=4(d1(n)d3(n)) where di(n) is the number of divisors of n congruent to ibmod4. So we want to count the number of divisors of numbers less than or equal to r2 congruent to ibmod4 for i=1,3 and take the difference. This gives



displaystylefracN(r2)14=leftlfloorr2rightrfloorleftlfloorfracr23rightrfloor+leftlfloorfracr25rightrfloormp...



and now the desired result follows by dividing by r2 and taking the limit.



Question: Does a similar proof exist of the formula displaystylefracpi26=1+frac122+frac132+...?



By "similar" I mean one first establishes a finitary result with a clear number-theoretic or combinatorial meaning and then takes a limit.

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