The Chebyshev conjecture posits that Chebyshev subsets of a real Hilbert space $X$ are convex. Works by Asplund, Ficken and Klee have uncovered an equivalent formulation of the Chebyshev conjecture in terms of uniquely remotal subsets of $X$. In this tradition, we develop another equivalent formulation in terms of Chebyshev subsets of the unit sphere of $X\times \mathbb{R}$. We characterise such sets in terms of the image under stereographic projection. Such sets have superior structure to Chebyshev sets and uniquely remotal sets.

In modelling joint probability distributions it is often desirable to incorporate standard marginal distributions and match a set of key observed mixed moments. At the same time it may also be prudent to avoid additional unwarranted assumptions. The problem is to find the least ordered distribution that respects the prescribed constraints. In this paper we will construct a suitable joint probability distribution by finding the checkerboard copula of maximum entropy that allows us to incorporate the appropriate marginal distributions and match the nominated set of observed moments.

We give bounds on the error in the asymptotic approximation of the log-Gamma function $\ln \unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}(z)$ for complex $z$ in the right half-plane. These improve on earlier bounds by Behnke and Sommer [Theorie der analytischen Funktionen einer komplexen Veränderlichen, 2nd edn (Springer, Berlin, 1962)], Spira [‘Calculation of the Gamma function by Stirling’s formula’, Math. Comp.25 (1971), 317–322], and Hare [‘Computing the principal branch of log-Gamma’, J. Algorithms25 (1997), 221–236]. We show that $|R_{k+1}(z)/T_{k}(z)|<\sqrt{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}k}$ for nonzero $z$ in the right half-plane, where $T_{k}(z)$ is the $k$th term in the asymptotic series, and $R_{k+1}(z)$ is the error incurred in truncating the series after $k$ terms. We deduce similar bounds for asymptotic approximation of the Riemann–Siegel theta function $\unicode[STIX]{x1D717}(t)$. We show that the accuracy of a well-known approximation to $\unicode[STIX]{x1D717}(t)$ can be improved by including an exponentially small term in the approximation. This improves the attainable accuracy for real $t>0$ from $O(\exp (-\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}t))$ to $O(\exp (-2\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}t))$. We discuss a similar example due to Olver [‘Error bounds for asymptotic expansions, with an application to cylinder functions of large argument’, in: Asymptotic Solutions of Differential Equations and Their Applications (ed. C. H. Wilcox) (Wiley, New York, 1964), 16–18], and a connection with the Stokes phenomenon.

We record $\binom{42}{2}+\binom{23}{2}+\binom{13}{2}=1192$ functional identities that, apart from being amazingly amusing in themselves, find application in the derivation of Ramanujan-type formulas for $1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}$ and in the computation of mathematical constants.

We consider an extension of the Ramanujan series with a variable $x$. If we let $x=x_{0}$, we call the resulting series ‘Ramanujan series with the shift $x_{0}$’. Then we relate these shifted series to some $q$-series and solve the case of level $4$ with the shift $x_{0}=1/2$. Finally, we indicate a possible way towards proving some patterns observed by the author corresponding to the levels $\ell =1,2,3$ and the shift $x_{0}=1/2$.

Let $0<\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}<n,1\leq p<q<\infty$ with $1/p-1/q=\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}/n$, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}\in A_{p,q}$, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D708}\in A_{\infty }$ and let $f$ be a locally integrable function. In this paper, it is proved that $f$ is in bounded mean oscillation $\mathit{BMO}$ space if and only if

$$\begin{eqnarray}\sup _{B}\frac{|B|^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}/n}}{\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}^{p}(B)^{1/p}}\bigg(\int _{B}|f(x)-f_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D708},B}|^{q}\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}(x)^{q}\,dx\bigg)^{1/q}<\infty ,\end{eqnarray}$$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}^{p}(B)=\int _{B}\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}(x)^{p}\,dx$

$f_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D708},B}=(1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D708}(B))\int _{B}f(y)\unicode[STIX]{x1D708}(y)\,dy$

$f$

$Lip_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}}$

$$\begin{eqnarray}\sup _{B}\frac{1}{\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}^{p}(B)^{1/p}}\bigg(\int _{B}|f(x)-f_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D708},B}|^{q}\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}(x)^{q}\,dx\bigg)^{1/q}<\infty .\end{eqnarray}$$

Let $p_{n}(x)=\int _{0}^{\infty }J_{0}(xt)[J_{0}(t)]^{n}xt\,dt$ be Kluyver’s probability density for $n$-step uniform random walks in the Euclidean plane. Through connection to a similar problem in two-dimensional quantum field theory, we evaluate the third-order derivative $p_{5}^{\prime \prime \prime }(0^{+})$ in closed form, thereby giving a new proof for a conjecture of J. M. Borwein. By further analogies to Feynman diagrams in quantum field theory, we demonstrate that $p_{n}(x),0\leq x\leq 1$ admits a uniformly convergent Maclaurin expansion for all odd integers $n\geq 5$, thus settling another conjecture of Borwein.