THE SUM OF THE rTH ROOTS OF

FIRST n NATURAL NUMBERS AND NEW FORMULA FOR

FACTORIAL
arXiv:1204.0877v2 [math.NT] 13 Feb 2013

SNEHAL SHEKATKAR

Abstract. Using the simple properties of Riemman integrable functions,

Ramanujans formula for sum of the square roots of first n natural numbers
has been generalized to include r th roots where r is any real number greater
than 1. As an application we derive formula that gives factorial of positive
integer n similar to Stirlings formula.

The formula for the sum of the square roots of first n natural numbers has
been given by Srinivas Ramanujan ([Ra15]). Here we extend his result to the
case of r th roots, where r is a real number greater than 1.
Statement of result:

Theorem 0.1. Let r be a real number with r 1 and n be a positive integer.

Then
x=n
X 1 r 1+r 1 1
(1) xr = (n + 1) r (n + 1) r n (r)
x=1
r+1 2

where n is a function of r with n as a parameter. This function is bounded

between 0 and 21 .

Proof. For a closed interval [a,b] we define partition of this interval as a set of
points x0 = a, x1 , ..., xn1 = b where xi < xj whenever i < j . Now consider the
closed interval [0,n] and consider a partition P of this interval,where P is a set
{0, 1, 2, ..., n}.

1
Consider a function defined as f (x)=x r .
We have,

Z n n1
X
I= f (x)dx = lim f (xi )xi
0 xi 0
i=0
1
2 SNEHAL SHEKATKAR

where
xi = xi+1 xi
We define lower sum for partition P as:
n1 n1
1
X X
L= f (i)xi = ir
i=0 i=0

Similarly,upper sum for P is

n n1
1
X X
U= f (i)xi = (i + 1) r
i=1 i=0

We write value of integral I as average of L and U with some correction term.

2I = L + U +
Z n n1
1 1 1

X
2 x r dx = i r + (i + 1) r +
0 i=0
n1
2r 1+r
n 1
X 1 1
x r 0 = 0r + 2 ir + nr +
r+1 i=1
n1 1
X 1r 1+r nr
i = r n r
i=1
r+1 2
1
where the term of 2
has been absorbed into .
n
X 1 r 1+r 1 1
(2) ir = (n + 1) r (n + 1) r
i=1
r+1 2
1
Taking limit of (2) as r ,L.H.S. n and R.H.S. (n + 2
), so
that in the limit 21
On the other extreme, for r = 1,

1 1
R.H.S. = (n + 1)2 (n + 1)
2 2
1 2
= (n + n)
2
n(n + 1)
=
2
 SUM OF rTH ROOTS 3

and,
n(n + 1)
L.H.S. =
2
This gives n (1) = 0

Since the difference between first and second term can easily be shown to be
monotonic, we see that is bounded between between 0 and 21 for 1 r <


As an application of the formula derived above, we derive formula to derive

factorial of positive integer. We begin by taking derivative of (2) with respect
to r. After rearranging the terms, we get,
(3)
i=n
r2
 
X 1 r 1 1 1+r d
i r log i = (n + 1) (n+1) r log(n+1) 2
(n+1) r +r 2
i=1
r+1 2 (r + 1) dr

After taking limit of this equation as r , we get following equation:

n
X 1 d
(4) log i = (n + ) log(n + 1) (n + 1) + lim r 2
i=1
2 r dr

In the above expression, L.H.S is just log(n!). Let us assume that limit in
the last term of the above equation exists and is finite and say that it is . Then
we can rewrite above equation as follows:
1
(5) n! = (n + 1)n+ 2 en1 e

Numerically it turns out that the quantity e indeed converges to finite value,

the value being close to 2. This formula is similar to precise version of
Stirlings formula ([St1]).
Equation (3) allows us to find one more interesting formula. After putting
r = 1 in (3) and after little rearrangement, we get following beautiful formula:
 n(n + 1) 1 d
log 11 .22 ...nn = log(n + 1) (n + 1)2 +

(6) |r=1
2 4 dr
d
Numerically it turns out that quantity |
dr r=1
is very small and can be ne-
glected.
4 SNEHAL SHEKATKAR

References
[Ra15] Ramanujan S., On the sum of the square roots of the first n natural numbers., J.
Indian Math. Soc., V II, (1915), 173-175.
[St1] Abramowitz, M. and Stegun, I. (2002), Handbook of Mathematical Functions.

Dept.of Physics, Indian institute of science education and research, Pune,

India, Pin:411021
E-mail address: [email protected]