Problem:
Define the sequence as follows: and for every ,
A non-negative integer is said to be jet-lagged if there are non-negative integers and a positive integer such that and that . How many integers in are jet-lagged?
Problem:
Define the sequence as follows: and for every ,
A non-negative integer is said to be jet-lagged if there are non-negative integers and a positive integer such that and that . How many integers in are jet-lagged?
Solution:
Let , and . Then , and , and . So we are trying to find the number of possible values of , subject to and .
Divide the into the following "blocks":
- ,
- ,
- ,
- ,
and so on. The block contains for . It's easy to see by induction that and thus for all . Within each block, the value is constant, and for the th block it equals . Therefore, is the difference of two powers of 2 , say . For any , it is clear there exists an such that (consider the block). We can guarantee by setting . Therefore, we are searching for the number of integers between 1 and 2016 that can be written as with . The pairs ( ) with and all satisfy ( 45 possibilities). In the case that , we have that so , so ( 6 possibilities). There are therefore jetlagged numbers between 1 and 2016.