Elementary lower bound for the Chebyshev theta function Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
The central binomial coefficient and Legendre formula imply
for every sufficiently large real number .
Every allocation is determined by the set of children on the red bus, so there are equally likely allocations. Exactly one places every boy on red and every girl on green. Hence
Applying Stirling formula to the numerator and denominator gives the central binomial coefficient asymptotic
and therefore
The binomial theorem gives
The central binomial coefficient is the largest of these nonnegative binomial coefficients, so
For the upper bound, fix a prime number . By Legendre formula,
Each summand is either zero or one. Hence the P-adic valuation satisfies
If , this implies
There are at most such prime numbers. If instead , then , so the P-adic valuation is at most one. Multiplying the prime-power contributions therefore yields