Problem:
Let be the smallest subset of the integers with the property that and for any , we have and . Determine the number of non-negative integers in less than .
Solution
Solution:
Write the elements of in their ternary expansion (i.e. base ). Then the second condition translates into: if , then and are also in . It follows that is the set of nonnegative integers whose ternary representation contains only the digits and .
Since , there are such elements less than . Therefore, there are such non-negative elements.
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