Let and be a nonempty family of nonempty subsets of with the following property – if and , then . Prove that the function
is strictly increasing in the interval .
Solution
Let . Notice that . We construct the sets and as follows: For each element we put in with probability (independently of each other), and for each element we put in with probability . Then . It is easy to see that , and , but since has the property from the condition we have that .
Looking for a route rather than an archive? The track puts 2,000
problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.