## On Bailey and Crandall’s unusual sum

In page 20 of Bailey and Crandall’s On the Random Character of Constant Expansions, they give the wonderfully unusual sum,

\begin{aligned} x_1 = \sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{1}{5^{5n}}\left(\frac{5}{5n+2}+\frac{1}{5n+3}\right)&=\frac{5^2}{2}\ln\left(\frac{781}{256}\left(\frac{57-5\sqrt{5}}{57+5\sqrt{5}}\right)^{\sqrt{5}}\right)\\ &= 2.833601\dots\end{aligned}

I didn’t think this was an isolated result so set about to find a generalization.  I found its counterpart,

\begin{aligned} x_2 = \sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{1}{5^{5n}}\left(\frac{5^3}{5n+1}+\frac{1}{5n+4}\right)&=\frac{5^3}{2}\ln\left(\frac{781}{256}\left(\frac{57+5\sqrt{5}}{57-5\sqrt{5}}\right)^{\sqrt{5}}\right)\\ &= 125.256703\dots\end{aligned}

Note that,

$(57+5\sqrt{5})(57-5\sqrt{5}) = 4(781) = 5^5-1$

We can demystify the sum a bit by splitting the log function into parts. After some algebraic manipulation, we find that the first one becomes,

\begin{aligned}&x_1 = 25\Big(-5\ln(2)+\tfrac{1-\sqrt{5}}{2}\,\ln(57+5\sqrt{5})+\tfrac{1+\sqrt{5}}{2}\,\ln(57-5\sqrt{5})\Big)\end{aligned}

Thus it can be expressed in the form,

$x_1 = r\ln\big({p_1}^{q_1}\,{p_2}^{q_2}\big)$

where {$p_1, p_2$} are roots of the same equation, {$q_1, q_2$} are roots of another, and r is a rational.  The fact that,

$2\cos(\pi/5) = \frac{1+\sqrt{5}}{2}$

was my clue that trigonometric functions may be involved.  Define,

$c_k = -2\cos(2k\pi/p)$

then for p = 5,

\begin{aligned}\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{5^{5n}}\left(\tfrac{5}{5n+2}+\tfrac{1}{5n+3}\right) &= 5^2\ln\big((5c_1+26)^{c_2}(5c_2+26)^{c_1}/4^2\big)\\&=2.833601\dots\end{aligned}

p = 7

\begin{aligned}\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{7^{7n}}\left(\tfrac{7}{7n+3}+\tfrac{1}{7n+4}\right) &= 7^3\ln\big((7c_1+50)^{c_3}(7c_2+50)^{c_1}(7c_3+50)^{c_2}/6^2\big)\\&=2.583334\dots\end{aligned}

p = 9

\begin{aligned}\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{9^{9n}}\left(\tfrac{9}{9n+4}+\tfrac{1}{9n+5}\right) &= 9^4\ln\big((9c_1+82)^{c_4}(9c_2+82)^{c_1}(9c_3+82)^{c_3}(9c_4+82)^{c_2}/8^2\big)\\&=2.450000\dots\end{aligned}

with the constants {$26, 50, 82$} easily ascertained as {$5^2+1, 7^2+1, 9^2+1$}, and so on.  On the other hand, their counterparts are easier as the exponent $c_k$ has the same subscript as the base.  Still defining,

$c_k = -2\cos(2k\pi/p)$

then for p = 5,

\begin{aligned}\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{5^{5n}}\left(\tfrac{5^3}{5n+1}+\tfrac{1}{5n+4}\right) &= 5^3\ln\big((5c_1+26)^{c_1}(5c_2+26)^{c_2}/4^2\big)\\&=125.256703\dots\end{aligned}

p = 7

\begin{aligned}\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{7^{7n}}\left(\tfrac{7^5}{7n+1}+\tfrac{1}{7n+6}\right) &= 7^5\ln\big((7c_1+50)^{c_1}(7c_2+50)^{c_2}(7c_3+50)^{c_3}/6^2\big)\\&=16807.169\dots\end{aligned}

p = 9

\begin{aligned}\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{9^{9n}}\left(\tfrac{9^7}{9n+1}+\tfrac{1}{9n+8}\right) &= 9^7\ln\big((9c_1+82)^{c_1}(9c_2+82)^{c_2}(9c_3+82)^{c_3}(9c_4+82)^{c_4}/8^2\big)\\&\approx 4.7829\, {\rm x}\, 10^6\end{aligned}

etc.