Problem:
An infinite castle has rooms labeled If room is on the same hall as rooms and for every , what is the maximum possible number of different halls on the castle?
Problem:
An infinite castle has rooms labeled If room is on the same hall as rooms and for every , what is the maximum possible number of different halls on the castle?
Solution:
We claim that all rooms must be on the same hall. Suppose for contradiction there is a room other than room that is the first room on its hall. We will show by induction that its room number must be congruent to for every positive integer , and therefore must be infinitely big.
First, note that room is on the same hall as room for every , since both are connected to room
Thus, no room that is a multiple of is first on its hall. Also, no room that is odd or that is besides room is first on its hall, since if is odd room is on the same hall as room , and if is room is on the same hall as room .
Now, for the base case, we claim that a room other than room that is first on its hall must be . To see this, note that the room number cannot be , or , since then it would be odd; it cannot be , since then it would be a multiple of ; and it cannot be , since then it would be . Thus, it must be .
For the inductive step, suppose our room number can be written as for nonnegative integers and . We claim first that is odd. Thus, suppose is even.
By repeatedly applying the rule that room is on the same hall as room , our room is on the same hall as room
Since we are assuming is even, this room number is odd, so it is on the same hall as room
This room number is , so it is on the same hall as room
Repeatedly applying the rule that room is on the same hall as room , we find that this room is on the same hall as room
for every positive integer . In particular, for , it is on the same hall as room . This is a smaller room number than the one we started with, contradicting the assumption that our room was the first on its hall. We conclude that must be odd.
Thus, we can write for some , so our room number is now
We now claim that is even, which will complete our induction.
Thus, suppose is odd. As before, we repeatedly apply the rule that rooms and are on the same hall to find that this room is on the same hall as room
Since we are assuming is odd, this number is odd, so it is on the same hall as room
This room number is , and similarly to before, we find by repeatedly applying the rule that rooms and are connected that our room is on the same hall as room
for each positive integer . In particular, it is on the same hall as room , which is smaller than our starting room number. This contradicts the assumption that was odd, so must be even. This completes our proof.