In number theory, the von Staudt–Clausen theorem is a result determining the fractional part of Bernoulli numbers, found independently by Karl von Staudt (1840) and Thomas Clausen (1840).
Specifically, if n is a positive integer and we add 1/p to the Bernoulli number B2n for every prime p such that p − 1 divides 2n, we obtain an integer, i.e.,
This fact immediately allows us to characterize the denominators of the non-zero Bernoulli numbers B2n as the product of all primes p such that p − 1 divides 2n; consequently the denominators are square-free and divisible by 6.
These denominators are
A proof of the Von Staudt–Clausen theorem follows from an explicit formula for Bernoulli numbers which is:
and as a corollary:
where are the Stirling numbers of the second kind.