Given a tuple of consecutive positive integers, one forms all pairs of members of it such that the first member is less than the second member. The percentage of these pairs where the second member is divisible by the first one is called the degree of divisibility of the tuple. For every integer , denote the largest possible degree of divisibility of a tuple of consecutive positive integers by .
Does there exist an integer such that ?
Solutions — 2
Solution 1
The largest percentage of pairs with the second term being divisible by the first term is achieved in the case of tuple . Indeed, consider an arbitrary tuple of the form where
. For any , multiples of in are every th term starting from the number , multiples of in are every th term starting from . The latter multiples occuring more seldom while the first occurrence being at the same position implies the same or smaller total number.
It is easy to check that the degree of divisibility of is and the degree of divisibility of is . By the above, .
Solution 2
Calculation shows that the degrees of divisibility of tuples , , and are , , and , respectively. If the first term of a quintuple is 5 or larger then no two terms can divide each other since the largest term is less than twice larger than the least term. Hence . As the degree of divisibility of is , we have .