Let be an infinite sequence of positive integers. Prove that there exists a unique integer such that
Solution
For define
The sign of indicates whether the first inequality in (1) holds; i.e., it is satisfied if and only if .
Notice that
so the second inequality in (1) is equivalent to . Therefore, we have to prove that there is a unique index that satisfies .
By its definition the sequence consists of integers and we have
From
we can see that and thus the sequence strictly decreases.
Hence, we have a decreasing sequence of integers such that its first element is positive. The sequence must drop below 0 at some point, and thus there is a unique index , that is the index of the last positive term, satisfying .
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