Characterising Solutions of Anomalous Cancellation

Abstract

Anomalous cancellation of fractions is a mathematically inaccurate method where cancelling the common digits of the numerator and denominator correctly reduces it. While it appears to be accidentally successful, the property of anomalous cancellation is intricately connected to the number of digits of the denominator as well as the base in which the fraction is represented. Previous work have been mostly surrounding three digit solutions or specific properties of the same. This paper seeks to get general results regarding the structure of numbers that follow the cancellation property (denoted by $P^*_{\ell; k}$) and an estimate of the total number of solutions possible in a given base representation. In particular, interesting properties regarding the saturation of the number of solutions in general and $p^n$ bases (where $p$ is a prime) have been studied in detail.