jcla1 parent
Interesting follow-up question: What is the distance between the set of harmonic numbers and the integers? i.e. is there a lower bound on the difference between a given integer and its closest harmonic number? If so, for which integer is this achieved?
There’s a trivial lower bound of zero, for n = 1.
For n > 1, there isn’t a lower bound. None of the numbers are integers again (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_series_(mathematics)#...), and because the difference between successive partial sums goes to zero and the series grows to arbitrary values, you’re bound to find a difference smaller than 1/(2n) somewhere beyond n.
Spoiler: there is a simple argument against the existence of such a lower bound.
No, because the terms tends monotonically towards zero. Let an integer m with closest harmonic number H_n be given (i.e. n minimizes |H_n-m|). So m exists either between H_n and H_(n+1) or H_n and H_(n-1). Then |H_n-m| < H_(n+1) - H_(n-1) = 1/n + 1/(n+1). We can make that bound arbitrary small by choosing a large enough n.