Let $\mathcal {N}(b)$ be the set of real numbers that are normal to base b. A well-known result of Ki and Linton [19] is that $\mathcal {N}(b)$ is $\boldsymbol {\Pi }^0_3$ -complete. We show that the set ${\mathcal {N}}^\perp (b)$ of reals, which preserve $\mathcal {N}(b)$ under addition, is also $\boldsymbol {\Pi }^0_3$ -complete. We use the characterization of ${\mathcal {N}}^\perp (b),$ given by Rauzy, in terms of an entropy-like quantity called the noise. It follows from our results that no further characterization theorems could result in a still better bound on the complexity of ${\mathcal {N}}^\perp (b)$ . We compute the exact descriptive complexity of other naturally occurring sets associated with noise. One of these is complete at the $\boldsymbol {\Pi }^0_4$ level. Finally, we get upper and lower bounds on the Hausdorff dimension of the level sets associated with the noise.

We consider some natural sets of real numbers arising in ergodic theory and show that they are, respectively, complete in the classes ${\cal D}_2 \left( {{\bf{\Pi }}_3^0 } \right)$ and ${\cal D}_\omega \left( {{\bf{\Pi }}_3^0 } \right)$, that is, the class of sets which are 2-differences (respectively, ω-differences) of ${\bf{\Pi }}_3^0 $ sets.

In this short note, we give a proof, conditional on the generalised Riemann hypothesis, that there exist numbers $x$ which are normal with respect to the continued fraction expansion but not to any base-$b$ expansion. This partially answers a question of Bugeaud.

Let $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}p$ be a prime and $b$ a primitive root of $p^2$. In this paper, we give an explicit formula for the number of times a value in $\{0,1,\ldots,b-1\}$ occurs in the periodic part of the base-$b$ expansion of $1/p^m$. As a consequence of this result, we prove two recent conjectures of Aragón Artacho et al. [‘Walking on real numbers’, Math. Intelligencer35(1) (2013), 42–60] concerning the base-$b$ expansion of Stoneham numbers.

Given an integer $q\ge 2$, a $q$-normal number is an irrational number $\eta $ such that any preassigned sequence of $\ell $ digits occurs in the $q$-ary expansion of $\eta $ at the expected frequency, namely $1/q^\ell $. In a recent paper we constructed a large family of normal numbers, showing in particular that, if $P(n)$ stands for the largest prime factor of $n$, then the number $0.P(2)P(3)P(4)\ldots ,$ the concatenation of the numbers $P(2), P(3), P(4), \ldots ,$ each represented in base $q$, is a $q$-normal number, thereby answering in the affirmative a question raised by Igor Shparlinski. We also showed that $0.P(2+1)P(3+1)P(5+1) \ldots P(p+1)\ldots ,$ where $p$ runs through the sequence of primes, is a $q$-normal number. Here, we show that, given any fixed integer $k\ge 2$, the numbers $0.P_k(2)P_k(3)P_k(4)\ldots $ and $0. P_k(2+1)P_k(3+1)P_k(5+1) \ldots P_k(p+1)\ldots ,$ where $P_k(n)$ stands for the $k{\rm th}$ largest prime factor of $n$, are $q$-normal numbers. These results are part of more general statements.

Given an integer d≥2, a d-normal number, or simply a normal number, is an irrational number whosed-ary expansion is such that any preassigned sequence, of length k≥1, taken within this expansion occurs at the expected limiting frequency, namely 1/dk. Answering questions raised by Igor Shparlinski, we show that 0.P(2)P(3)P(4)…P(n)… and 0.P(2+1)P(3+1)P(5+1)…P(p+1)…, where P(n) stands for the largest prime factor of n, are both normal numbers.

For a subset $E\subseteq\mathbb{R}^{d}$ and $x\in\mathbb{R}^{d}$, the local Hausdorff dimension function of $E$ at $x$ is defined by

$$ \mathrm{dim}_{\mathrm{loc}}(x,E)=\lim_{r\searrow0}\mathrm{dim}(E\cap B(x,r)), $$

where ‘dim’ denotes the Hausdorff dimension. Using some of our earlier results on so-called multifractal divergence points we give a short proof of the following result: any continuous function $f:\mathbb{R}^{d}\to[0,d]$ is the local dimension function of some set $E\subseteq\mathbb{R}^{d}$. In fact, our result also provides information about the rate at which the dimension $\mathrm{dim}(E\cap B(x,r))$ converges to $f(x)$ as $r\searrow0$.

AMS 2000 Mathematics subject classification: Primary 28A80

Let R, S be a partition of 2, 3,… so that rational powers fall in the same class. Let (λn) be any real sequence; we show that there exists a set N, of dimension 1, so that (x + λn) (n = 1,2, …) are normal to every base from R and to no base from S, for every x ∈ N.