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Algebra Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Prove it Ireland

Let a1,a2,a3,a4,a_1, a_2, a_3, a_4, \dots be a sequence of non-negative integers such that
an+2=(an+1an), a_{n+2} = \binom{a_{n+1}}{a_n},
where
(mk)={m!k!(mk)!if mk,0otherwise. \binom{m}{k} = \begin{cases} \frac{m!}{k!(m-k)!} & \text{if } m \ge k, \\ 0 & \text{otherwise.} \end{cases}
Prove that such a sequence tends to infinity if and only if 2a1a222 \le a_1 \le a_2 - 2.

Solution

If the given pair of inequalities do not hold, then the sequence (an)(a_n) quickly degenerates into a sequence consisting of only 0s and 1s. There are basically two such cases to analyse, namely a1=0a_1 = 0 and a1=1a_1 = 1, since the two other cases a1=a2a_1 = a_2 and a1=a21a_1 = a_2 - 1 are seen to be equivalent to those two cases by means of the basic identity
(NM)=(NNM). \binom{N}{M} = \binom{N}{N-M}.
Each of the cases a1=0a_1 = 0 and a1=1a_1 = 1 can be broken into three subcases, depending on whether a2a_2 equals 0, 1, or a larger number. In all six cases, if we eliminate a few terms from the beginning of the sequence (an)(a_n), we are left with either the constant sequence 1,1,1,1, 1, 1, \dots, or the alternating sequence 0,1,0,1,0,1,0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, \dots. We leave it to the reader to check that this is true in each of the six subcases.

On the other hand, if the inequalities both hold then we can show by induction that an+13an/2a_{n+1} \ge 3a_n/2 for all n>2n > 2. This follows readily by using the following lemma for the inductive step.

Lemma. Let A,BA, B, and CC be positive integers such that 2AB22 \le A \le B - 2 and
C=(BA). C = \binom{B}{A}.
Then 2BC22 \le B \le C - 2 and C3B/2C \ge 3B/2.

Proof. Recall the well-known fact that for a fixed positive integer BB, the binomial coefficients (BA)\binom{B}{A} increase as the integer A[0,B]A \in [0, B] is moved towards B/2B/2. Thus in the above lemma, CC is minimal when A=2A = 2 or A=B2A = B - 2. In both of these cases, (BA)\binom{B}{A} equals B(B1)/2B(B-1)/2 and, since B4B \ge 4, we readily get the desired lower bounds 3B/23B/2 and B+2B + 2 for CC.

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