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A065071 Minimum number of identical bricks of length 1 which, when stacked without mortar in the naive way, form a stack of length >=n. 0
1, 5, 32, 228, 1675, 12368, 91381, 675215, 4989192, 36865413, 272400601, 2012783316, 14872568832, 109894245430, 812014744423, 6000022499694, 44334502845081, 327590128640501, 2420581837980562, 17885814992891027 (list; graph; refs; listen; history; internal format)
OFFSET

1,2

COMMENTS

The ratios a(n+1)/a(n) seem to approach e^2=7.389056..., with 7-place agreement for n=11.

Comment from Douglas Rogers, Aug 31, 2005: Note that one can do ''better'' in terms of projections if you group the bricks asymmetrically into lozenges with holes in them. See the Ainsley and Drummond references. Ainsley considers only the case of four bricks, but achieves an overhang of (15-4sqrt2)/8, compared with 25/24 for the harmonic pile.

REFERENCES

S. Ainley, Letter, Math. Gaz., 63 (1979), 272.

J. E. Drummond, On stacking bricks to achieve a large overhang, Math. Gaz., 65 (1981), 40-42.

N. J. A. Sloane, Illustration for sequence M4299 (=A007340) in The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (with S. Plouffe), Academic Press, 1995.

LINKS

R. Dickau, Harmonic numbers and the book-stacking problem

Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics, Link to a section of The World of Mathematics

FORMULA

Equals A002387(2n) + 1.

EXAMPLE

Obviously a(1)=1. If the center of gravity of one brick is placed at the end of a second brick, the length of the stack of 2 bricks is 1.5. If the c.g. of that stack is placed at the end of a third brick, the length of the stack is 1.75. Continuing, we get a stack of length 1.916666... for 4 bricks and a stack of length 2.0416666... for 5 bricks. Thus a(2)=5.

MATHEMATICA

A002387[n_] := Floor[ Exp[n - EulerGamma] + 1/2]; a[n_] := A002387[2n - 2] + 1; a[1] = 1; Table[a[n], {n, 1, 20}] (* From Jean-François Alcover, Dec 13 2011, after Charles R Greathouse IV *)

CROSSREFS

Cf. harmonic numbers H(n) = A001008/A002805, A002387, A004080.

Sequence in context: A024064 A164594 A199486 * A153396 A146965 A053157

Adjacent sequences:  A065068 A065069 A065070 * A065072 A065073 A065074

KEYWORD

nonn,easy

AUTHOR

John W. Layman (layman(AT)math.vt.edu), Nov 08 2001

EXTENSIONS

More terms from Vladeta Jovovic (vladeta(AT)eunet.rs), Nov 14 2001

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Last modified February 14 09:18 EST 2012. Contains 205614 sequences.