Converting to unit fractions
August 30th, 2004 ~ Posted in: MathematicsI was just reading about the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus. Apparently the ancient Egyptians had a table of 2 divided by all the odd numbers between 3 and 101, expressed as the sum of unit fractions. Can anyone think of an algorithm for this?
A unit fraction is a fraction of the form 
; so for example 
.
One Response to “Converting to unit fractions”
December 22nd, 2004 at 4:28 pm
The Egyptians would further find it nonsensical to express 2/5 as 1/5 + 1/5, believing that there could only be one ‘fifth part’
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