Problem:
For how many positive integers does the equation in real numbers
have a positive solution for ? (For a real number , denotes the largest integer that is not greater than .)
Solution
Solution:
If , then , so we can safely ignore this case, as it does not introduce new solutions.
If for some , is a continuous and increasing function on the interval . Therefore, the can take on any value in when . Because , it suffices to count the number of integers in the interval for .
Thus, the number of valid is simply
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