Problem:
Is it true that for any permutation of there are positive integers and of the same parity such that and ?
Problem:
Is it true that for any permutation of there are positive integers and of the same parity such that and ?
Solution:
The answer is no. We shall prove by induction that for any there is a permutation of such that
For and take the permutations and , respectively. Assume that our statement is true for any integer less than . Start with the following permutation of : the odd numbers are in the first block, the even numbers that are not divisible by are in the second block, etc. For example, if , then we have .
If and are in different blocks, set and , where and are odd integers. Then is in the block before that of , whence is in a block between these of and . So (1) holds.
It remains to reorder the integers in any block in such a way that (1) is satisfied for the numbers in this block. Consider the -th block: , where . By the induction assumption there is a permutation of satisfying (1). Set for and consider the permutation . Then
which completes the proof.