Let be positive real numbers. For , we inductively define
Prove that there exist positive integers and such that for all .
Solutions — 2
Solution 1
First, from the problem conditions we have that each can be expressed as with . If, say, then we can proceed in the same way with , and so on. Finally, we represent in a form
a_{n}=a_{i_{1}}+\cdots+a_{i_{k}} \tag{2}\\
1 \leq i_{j} \leq r, \quad i_{1}+\cdots+i_{k}=n \tag{3}
Moreover, if and are the numbers in (2) obtained on the last step, then . Hence we can adjust (3) as
On the other hand, suppose that the indices satisfy the conditions (4). Then, denoting , from (1) we have
Summarizing these observations we get the following
Claim. For every , we have
Now we denote
and fix some index such that .
Consider some and choose an expansion of in the form (2), (4). Then we have , so . Suppose that none of the numbers equals . Then by the pigeonhole principle there is an index which appears among at least times, and surely . Let us delete these occurrences of from , and add occurrences of instead, obtaining a sequence also satisfying (4). By Claim, we have
or, after removing the coinciding terms, , so . By the definition of , this means that , hence
Thus, for every we have found a representation of the form (2), (4) with for some . Rearranging the indices we may assume that .
Finally, observe that in this representation, the indices satisfy the conditions (4) with replaced by . Thus, from the Claim we get
which by (1) implies
as desired.
Solution 2
As in the previous solution, we involve the expansion (2), (3), and we fix some index such that
Now, we introduce the sequence as ; then .
We prove by induction on that , and satisfies the same recurrence relation as . The base cases follow from the definition of . Now, for from the induction hypothesis we have
as required.
Now, if for all , then for all , hence , and the statement is trivial. Otherwise, define
Then for we obtain
so
Thus, in view of the expansion (2), (3) applied to the sequence , we get that each is contained in a set
We claim that this set is finite. Actually, for any , let . Then among 's there are at most nonzero terms (otherwise ). Thus can be expressed in the same way with , and there is only a finite number of such sums.
Finally, for every we get that the sequence
is non-decreasing and attains the finite number of values; therefore it is constant from some index. Thus, the sequence is periodic with period from some index , which means that
and hence
as desired.