A sequence of real numbers is equidistributed on an interval if the probability of finding in any subinterval is proportional to the subinterval length. The points of an equidistributed sequence form a dense set on the interval .
However, dense sets need not necessarily be equidistributed. For example, , where is the fractional part, is dense in but not equidistributed, as illustrated above for to 5000 (left) and to (right)
Hardy and Littlewood (1914) proved that the sequence , of power fractional parts is equidistributed for almost all real numbers (i.e., the exceptional set has Lebesgue measure zero). Exceptional numbers include the positive integers, the silver ratio (Finch 2003), and the golden ratio .
The top set of above plots show the values of for equal to e, the Euler-Mascheroni constant , the golden ratio , and pi. Similarly, the bottom set of above plots show a histogram of the distribution of for these constants. Note that while most settle down to a uniform-appearing distribution, curiously appears nonuniform after iterations. Steinhaus (1999) remarks that the highly uniform distribution of has its roots in the form of the continued fraction for .
Now consider the number of empty intervals in the distribution of in the intervals bounded by the intervals determined by 0, , , ..., , 1 for , 2, ..., summarized below for the constants previously considered.
Sloane | # empty intervals for , 2, ... | |
A036412 | 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 3, 1, 4, 4, 7, 5, ... | |
A046157 | 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 3, 0, 3, 5, 3, ... | |
A036414 | 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 0, 2, 2, ... | |
A036416 | 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 7, ... |
The values of for which no bins are left blank are given in the following table.