On the Magnitude of the Sum of Bases of the Natural Numbers

We construct two bases of the natural numbers B₁ and B₂, eachof order two, such that (B₁ + B₂ (n) <n^{+c/(log n)}. For alower estimate, it is proved that if B₂ and are two bases, eachof order two, then (B₁+B₂)(n) > n. Generalisations to sumsof bases of order h > 2 are also given.     

Comparison of number–average molecular weights calculated by GPC and membrane osmometry

Data are presented which show that when a polymer contains an appreciable amount of low molecular weight species below the diffusion limit of the osmometer membrane, the osmotic molecular weight, M?_n, is generally higher than the M?_n calculated from gel-permeation chromatography (GPC). Experiments were performed on samples of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) and high-cis polybutadiene polymers. Osmotic data were obtained in the usual manner, while GPC data were obtained using the universal calibration approach. It was found that when all polymer species below approximately 10,000 molecular weight were excluded from the calculation of M?_n by GPC, agreement in M?_n was obtained between membrane osmometry and GPC. The data obtained suggest that the choice of M?_n as measured by membrane osmometry in the calibration of the GPC should not be done casually, as the measured M?_n may not reflect the “true” value of that sample, especially when the polymer sample contains an appreciable amount of low molecular weight material.     

The linear polarization constant of R n

Summary He present work deals with estimations of the n-th linear polarization constant c(H)_n of an n-dimensional real Hilbert space H. We provide some new lower bounds on the value of sup_║y║=1 │1,y> ... n,y>│, where x₁, ... ,x_n are unit vectors in H. In particular, the results improve an earlier estimate of Marcus. However, the intriguing conjecture c(H) _n= n^n/2 remains open.     

Pointwise ergodic theorem along the prime numbers

The pointwise ergodic theorem is proved for prime powers for functions inL ^p,p>1. This extends a result of Bourgain where he proved a similar theorem forp>(1+√3)/2. This paper is a part of the author’s Ph.D. thesis supervised by V. Bergelson.     

Spacetime without reference frames: An application to the kinetic theory

Spacetime structures defined in the language of manifolds admit an absolute formulation, i.e., a formulation which does not refer to observers (reference frames). We consider an affine structure for Galilean spacetime. As an application the Chapman-Enskog iteration for the solution of the Boltzmann equation is given in an absolute form. As a consequence, the second approximations of the stress tensor and the heat flux are obtained in a form independent of observers, which throws new light on material frame indifference.     

Spacetime without Reference Frames: An Application to Synchronizations on a Rotating Disk

Nonstandard synchronizations of inertial observers in special relativity and synchronizations with respect to a uniformly rotating observer are investigated in a setting which avoids coordinates and transformation rules and so removes some misunderstandings.     

On Fuglede's Conjecture and the Existence of Universal Spectra

Recent methods developed by Tao [18], Kolountzakis and Matolcsi [7] have led to counterexamples to Fugelde’s Spectral Set Conjecture in both directions. Namely, in Tao produced a spectral set which is not a tile, while Kolountzakis and Matolcsi showed an example of a nonspectral tile. In search of lower dimensional nonspectral tiles we were led to investigate the Universal Spectrum Conjecture (USC) of Lagarias and Wang [14]. In particular, we prove here that the USC and the "tile → spectral" direction of Fuglede’s conjecture are equivalent in any dimensions. Also, we show by an example that the sufficient condition of Lagarias and Szabó [13] for the existence of universal spectra is not necessary. This fact causes considerable difficulties in producing lower dimensional examples of tiles which have no spectra. We overcome these difficulties by invoking some ideas of Révész and Farkas [2], and obtain nonspectral tiles in . Fuglede’s conjecture and the Universal Spectrum Conjecture remains open in 1 and 2 dimensions. The one-dimensional case is closely related to a number theoretical conjecture on tilings by Coven and Meyerowitz [1].