Egyptian Fractions

https://blog.plover.com/math/egyptian-fractions.html

#HackerNews #EgyptianFractions #MathHistory #NumberTheory #AncientMathematics #Puzzles

New blog post “Egyptian fraction multiplication”. I continue a discussion from 2006 (!) in which I discussed why the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus has a table of expansions of fractions of the form 2/n, and why 3/n etc. wasn't needed. I talk about the way the Egyptians did multiplication, and other related matters.

https://blog.plover.com/math/egyptian-multiplication.html

#math #arithmetic #egyptianFractions

The Egyptian multiplication algorithm, as I understand it, multiplies 9 × 1/99 and gets a result of 1/22 + 1/33 + 1/99 + 1/198. This is numerically equal to 1/11, but it's not clear to me how the Egyptians would have recognized this.

Does anyone happen to know anything about this? I understand how Egyptian fractions can be added and even multiplied, but not how they can be compared for equality or to see which is less or greater.

#egyptianFractions #arithmetic #algorithms

New blog post “Did Ahmes find the best expansions for 2/n?”. I discuss the table of Egyptian fraction expansions of 2/n in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, and whether it contains mistakes. I bravely conclude that I am not sure.

https://blog.plover.com/math/egyptian-fractions-2.html

#math #egyptianFractions #rhindMathematicalPapyrus #arithmetic