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Concept

Harmonic series

The sum of the reciprocals of the whole numbers, which grows without bound even though its terms shrink to nothing. Its partial sums track the natural logarithm, and its divergence is what forces the sum over the primes to diverge too.

Named by 8 essays across 3 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

Terms that vanish, a total that does not. The first 24 terms of the harmonic series as bars, with the running total above them. The last bar is 0.042 tall and the total has reached 3.776.

A sum whose terms vanish and whose total does not

Add a half, a third, a quarter, and keep going. The terms shrink to nothing and the total passes every number there is — but so slowly that no computation will ever watch it happen.

analysis · Harmonic series The same terms, with the signs alternating. The partial sums of 1 - 1/2 + 1/3 - 1/4 + …, out to 24 terms. They close on 0.69315 from both sides at once, and the gap between consecutive sums is the next term, so the answer is trapped.

The same terms, in a different order, adding to whatever is asked

Flip alternate signs in the harmonic series and it converges. Reorder the terms — add nothing, remove nothing — and it converges to any number chosen in advance. Addition stops being commutative, and the picture shows where it goes.

analysis · Harmonic series Euclid's construction on 2, 3, 5, 7. The product of the listed primes plus one, divided by each of them in turn; every division leaves one over.

There is no last prime

Euclid's argument is often described as producing a new prime from any finite list. It does not, and the number it builds is frequently composite — which makes the proof more interesting rather than less.

number · Infinitude of primes Waiting for all 6 kinds. One bar per new kind: the expected number of draws needed to see a kind not yet seen, rising as fewer of them are left, and adding to 14.70 draws in total.

How long until every one turns up

Draw at random from six equally likely kinds until all six have appeared. The wait is not six draws, and it is not sixty; it is fourteen point seven, and the number is a harmonic sum wearing a hat.

probability · Expectation A square cut into 7 pieces and a remainder. A square divided by cutting off a fixed fraction of what is left, over and over, so that the pieces are the terms of a geometric series and the uncut corner is the tail.

The sum that fits in one square

Half, then a quarter, then an eighth, forever. Adding infinitely many things sounds like it should give infinity, and the picture that says otherwise is a square with a corner left uncut.

analysis · Geometric series 5,040 orders, 7 thresholds, one best rule. For each number of candidates passed over, the share of the 5,040 possible arrival orders in which the rule ends up with the best of the 7. The count is exhaustive.

When to stop looking

Candidates arrive one at a time in a random order. Each must be accepted or rejected on the spot, with no going back and no way to know what is still to come. The best possible rule is to look at about a third of them and then take the first one that beats everything seen — and it works about a third of the time, however many there are.

probability · Optimal stopping The sieve as a product, and the sum over the primes. The whole numbers up to 60, with those built only from 2, 3, 5 marked — the numbers the product of three geometric series multiplies out to. Beside them, the sum of the reciprocals of the primes, which grows without bound.

The sieve written as a product

Multiply out one geometric series for each prime and every whole number appears exactly once, as a single term. That identity turns a statement about factorisation into a statement about convergence, and it is where the analytic study of the primes begins.

number · Prime distribution The area that names the number. The curve 1/x with the area under it from 1 to 2.7183 shaded, measuring 1.0000.

The area that names the number

The number e can be defined without mentioning slopes at all. Slide right along the curve 1/x until the area underneath reaches exactly one, and stop. That is where e is, and the reason logarithms turn multiplication into addition is visible in the same picture.

analysis · The exponential

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

ConvergenceDivergenceLimitLogarithmConvergence rateCounting argumente, the numberThe Euler–Mascheroni constantExpectationGeometric seriesHarmonicsNatural logarithm

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