Given an integer , determine the largest number of divisors the binomial coefficient may have in the range , as runs through the integers greater than or equal to .
Solution
The required maximum is and is achieved, for instance, at . To complete the proof, we now show that at least one of the numbers , , is not an integer. To this end, we exhibit a -linear combination of these numbers which is not an integer. For instance,
is not an integer, since . The leftmost equality above is easily proved by noticing that the polynomial
has degree at most , and takes on the value 1 at distinct points, namely, 0, 1, ..., , so it is identically 1.
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