Let denote the set of all natural numbers. Define a function by and . We write and in general for any .
(i) Show that for each , there exists such that .
(ii) For , let denote the number of elements in the set . Prove that , for .
Solution
(i) For , we have and . Hence we may assume that .
Suppose is even. Then . We observe that for .
Suppose is odd so that . Then and . Again we see that for .
Thus we see that in at most steps sends to 1. Hence . (Here is only a bound. In reality, less number of steps will do.)
(ii) We show that , where is the -th Fibonacci number.
Let and let be such that . Here can be odd or even. If is even, it can be either of the form or of the form .
If is odd, then . (Observe that ; otherwise we get which is impossible since .) Here is even.
If , then again . Here is odd.
Thus each solution of produces exactly one solution of and is either odd or of the form .
If , we see that . This shows that each solution of produces exactly one solution of of the form .
Thus the number of solutions of is equal to the number of solutions of and the number of solutions of for . This shows that for . We also observe that 2 is the only number which goes to 1 in one step and 4 is the only number which goes to 1 in two steps. Hence and . This proves that for all .