On a conjecture of Wilf

Stefan de Wannemacker, Thomas Laffey, Robert Osburn

Published 2006-08-03, updated 2007-01-26Version 2

Let n and k be natural numbers and let S(n,k) denote the Stirling numbers of the second kind. It is a conjecture of Wilf that the alternating sum \sum_{j=0}^{n} (-1)^{j} S(n,j) is nonzero for all n>2. We prove this conjecture for all n not congruent to 2 and not congruent to 2944838 modulo 3145728 and discuss applications of this result to graph theory, multiplicative partition functions, and the irrationality of p-adic series.