On the Greatest Common Divisor of Binomial Coefficients ${n \choose q}, {n \choose 2q}, {n \choose 3q}, \dots$

Abstract

Every binomial coefficient aficionado knows that the greatest common divisor of the binomial coefficients $\binom n1,\binom n2,\dots,\binom n{n-1}$ equals $p$ if $n=p^i$ for some $i>0$ and equals 1 otherwise. It is less well known that the greatest common divisor of the binomial coefficients $\binom{2n}2,\binom{2n}4,\dots,\binom{2n}{2n-2}$ equals (a certain power of 2 times) the product of all odd primes $p$ such that $2n=p^i+p^j$ for some $0\le i\le j$. This note gives a concise proof of a tidy generalization of these facts.