Find all pairs of functions mapping the set of positive integers to the set of positive integers satisfying
for all positive integers . Here , are defined.
Solution
The only pair of functions satisfying the statement of the problem is .
From the condition we know that for all positive integers we have
Let us list all the values that the function can attain in increasing order as (this sequence may be finite or infinite in length). We will next use mathematical induction to prove that:
has if and only if . Note that this also means that for any
and positive integer if and only if .
Since for there is exactly one positive integer corresponding to each of them under , therefore exists. Take any positive integer such that , then must be greater than (according to ). Substituting into the above inequality gives
therefore if we denote , then we have
If , then we would have (because
if and only if ), which contradicts . Therefore , hence (because we already know
, so is the smallest positive integer in the range that is greater than ), and this proves .
So according to and , we know that , that is, the only possible
value of is , and this also proves .
By mathematical induction we can know that and hold for all positive integers . Therefore . Substituting back into the original condition of the problem, we obtain . Since the range of is the positive integers, we can immediately deduce that .