Alcuin's sequence

In mathematics, Alcuin's sequence, named after Alcuin of York, is the sequence of coefficients of the power-series expansion of

${\frac {x^{3}}{(1-x^{2})(1-x^{3})(1-x^{4})}}=x^{3}+x^{5}+x^{6}+2x^{7}+x^{8}+3x^{9}+\cdots .$

The sequence begins with these integers:

0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 2, 4, 3, 5, 4, 7, 5, 8, 7, 10, 8, 12, 10, 14, 12, 16, 14, 19, 16, 21

The nth term is the number of triangles with integer sides and perimeter n.[1] It is also the number of triangles with distinct integer sides and perimeter n + 6, i.e. number of triples (a, b, c) such that 1 < a < b < c < a + b, a + b + c = n + 6.

If one deletes the three leading zeros, then it is the number of ways in which n empty casks, n casks half-full of wine and n full casks can be distributed to three persons in such a way that each one gets the same number of casks and the same amount of wine.

External links

• wolfram.com
• oeis.org