Binomial coefficients with even interior terms Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
For a positive integer , all binomial coefficients with are even exactly when is a power of two. Write the binary expansion . In the polynomial ring , repeated squaring gives
If has one element, there are no interior terms. If it has more than one, the coefficient of is one and that exponent lies strictly between zero and . This characterization gives a useful parity obstruction directly from the binary expansion.
Modular exponentiation 2026-10-06
Modular exponentiation evaluates a nonnegative integer power modulo . Repeated squaring according to the binary expansion of needs modular multiplications, with intermediate integers reduced modulo . This avoids constructing the potentially enormous integer . A reversible computation gives the coherent quantum modular exponentiation used in quantum order finding and discrete-logarithm Fourier sampling.
First apply the Cantor theorem by diagonalization. If an injection existed, it would define a surjection by the unique inverse value on 's image, and by elsewhere. The set cannot equal for any , since would be equivalent to . This contradicts surjectivity. There is no injection from the power set of the real line into the real line.
For the opposite type of encoding, let , an injective map from to . Give its canonical binary expansion, choosing the terminating expansion with trailing zeros whenever two expansions exist. If the binary digits of are , define a real-number pairing by separated digits:
This uses ternary digits only , alternating the two input digit sequences. If two outputs first differ at ternary position , that difference has magnitude , while every later digit together contributes at most . Their outputs therefore differ. The digits recover both binary sequences, hence both inputs. Neither output endpoint nor occurs because the input numbers lie strictly between zero and one. Thus is an injection from into . The ternary construction avoids an unjustified decimal-interleaving argument at ambiguous expansions.
For a finite modification of the identity on the real line, let have size , and sort it uniquely as . Its finite record is . It determines completely, with the identity used outside the recorded points. Repeatedly applying the pairing gives an injection for every positive finite : take and . Encode by
Different lengths occupy disjoint intervals , and within a fixed length the record is recoverable. Hence
Indeed the cardinality is exactly that of : the functions that alter only , assigning it an arbitrary real value, give an injection in the other direction, and the Cantor-Schröder-Bernstein theorem applies.
Use uncountability by interleaving prescribed binary coordinates. For each arbitrary binary sequence , define another binary sequence by
There are infinitely many zero coordinates, namely , so . There are also infinitely many coordinates agreeing with the prescribed binary expansion, namely , so . The coordinates recover , making this map an injection of the uncountable set of all binary sequences into . If were a countable set, composing with an injection into would make all binary sequences countable, contrary to part (i). Therefore The construction works for every prescribed binary sequence ; no special distribution property of the digits of is needed.
The chosen non-eventually-one binary expansion fixes the ambiguity at dyadic rationals. Its th digit is
In particular
This is a finite union of Borel sets; the zero-digit preimage is its complement in . Since only takes the values zero and one, every Borel preimage is a union of these two sets. Thus it is Borel measurable. The half-open intervals implement the terminating-zero convention at dyadic endpoints.
The map swaps each adjacent pair of binary digits: . Canonical expansions with no eventual all-ones tail remain canonical under this swap, and .
Under Lebesgue measure, any specified values of distinct binary digits have probability . Indeed they describe a union of dyadic intervals at the largest of the specified positions, with that total length. The preimage of a cylinder prescribing its first output digits prescribes distinct input digits and therefore has the same measure. The half-open dyadic intervals, with the empty set, form a pi-system generating the Borel sigma-algebra. Apply the preceding uniqueness result to obtain
The choice of binary expansion matters at dyadic endpoints for the map's pointwise definition; the chosen convention removes that ambiguity and those endpoints are null in the measure calculation.
This is an infinite binary expansion with digits in . If the usual expansion of has infinitely many digits, list their positions as . If it terminates with a final term , replace that term by
this also covers every dyadic rational. For , use . Thus every has the required form.
The representation by an infinite strictly increasing sequence is unique. If two sequences first differ at exponent , one sum contains and the other does not. The latter's entire possible tail is at most , while the former has plus its own nonempty tail, so the sums cannot agree.
The relation makes a root of unity, so and normalization gives . Write the binary expansion . Then , and hence
up to the convention for ordering the binary digits. This explicit tensor product of one-qubit states proves that is a product state.
Implement the assumed efficient classical algorithm for as a reversible circuit. On input , it computes an -bit binary expansion of the angle in a work register using Toffoli gates and elementary reversible gates. Write the computed angle as a sum of binary-weighted angles. For each angle bit, apply the corresponding controlled single-qubit rotation to the target. These rotations have the same axis, so their angles add and produce
Finally apply uncomputation to erase the work register. Each Toffoli gate and controlled rotation has a constant-size decomposition into one- and two-qubit gates when arbitrary one-qubit rotations are available. Ignoring the stipulated precision costs, the resulting circuit has size and returns every quantum ancilla to zero.
Map each real into by a fixed bijection, choose its canonical binary expansion, and alternate the two bit sequences as ternary digits and . If two such outputs first differ at position , the leading difference has size and the remaining tail has size at most , so they are unequal. This gives an explicit injection pairing two reals. Iteration encodes every fixed finite real tuple without invoking ambiguous decimal expansions.