Reciprocals of a block of consecutive integers never sum to an integer
ProvedErdos287.block_theoremFor every and every ,
This is Kürschák's theorem, stated in the equivalent form . Mathlib already contains the special case (harmonic_not_int, that for ); the statement here is the general block version. Erdős' 1932 paper generalises it further, from blocks of consecutive integers to arithmetic progressions.
The result is the substance behind the gap-two bound for Erdős Problem 287: a representation of all of whose consecutive differences equal one has denominators forming exactly such a block.
Formalization note. ¬ ∃ m : ℤ, S = (m : ℚ) is used rather than a predicate such as Rat.isInt, so that the assertion is transparent. Both hypotheses are needed: the sum of a single reciprocal is an integer, and would make the first summand undefined as a reciprocal (1/0 = 0 in Lean).
import Mathlib
namespace Erdos287
theorem block_theorem (n k : ℕ) (hn : 0 < n) (hk : 2 ≤ k) :
¬ ∃ m : ℤ, (∑ i ∈ Finset.range k, (1 : ℚ) / (n + i)) = (m : ℚ) := by sorry
end Erdos287
Confirmed by the mission captain (proposal self-audit).