Let be a positive integer. Positive integers are written in a row in some order. For any two neighboring numbers their GCD is written on the paper. Find the greatest possible number of distinct numbers among all numbers written on the paper.
Solution
Ответ. .
Решение. Upper bound. Assume one of the written numbers is greater than , say, . Then the larger of the numbers must be at least , which exceeds - a contradiction. Therefore, each written GCD cannot exceed , and thus the number of distinct GCDs cannot be greater than .
Example. Let's partition all numbers from to into chains of the form , where is an odd number not exceeding . Write these chains consecutively in a row. Then for any natural number , there exists a chain containing where the number following is . We see that every natural number will appear on the sheet.
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