Let denote the strictly positive integers. A function satisfies the following for all :
Find the value of .
Solutions — 3
Solution 1
From we obtain for all integers that if and only if .
We first show that for all . To see this, let . Then and and so .
Next we show that for all and . We prove this by induction on . When this is obvious. For the inductive step we use the given to obtain
Because , we obtain . Using this gives for all .
We can now work backwards to find :
We finally obtain , and .
Solution 2
Look for a sequence such that , and for , either or . The three given conditions for imply that for any such sequence for . In particular, . The following sequence works (ignore the fourth column for now)
| j | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 2 | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| 3 | 4 | 7 | 12 |
| 4 | 8 | 15 | 24 |
| 5 | 16 | 31 | 48 |
| 6 | 32 | 63 | 96 |
| 7 | 63 | 32 | 96 |
| 8 | 126 | 65 | 192 |
| 9 | 252 | 131 | 384 |
| 10 | 131 | 252 | 384 |
| 11 | 262 | 505 | 768 |
| 12 | 505 | 262 | 768 |
| 13 | 1010 | 525 | 1536 |
| 14 | 2020 | 1051 | 3072 |
Thus, . This is a complete proof, but the sequence has been pulled out of a hat. To motivate the sequence, we note that either stays constant or doubles with each unit increase in . As , it follows that is equal to 3 multiplied by a power of 2 for all . So we can start at the bottom with and guess what power of 2 we have to multiply by 3 to get . The next number of the required form is 3072, which (if correct, we don't yet know this) would imply . We then work backwards using:
It is not obvious that this approach will work. When we start with such that , the process will always terminate with a pair . However, only with starting value we get as required.
Solution 3
After showing that as in Solution 1, it is possible to work out the first few by hand. These values suggest that when is an integer and we have
We show this by induction on . When we must have and the claim is true, because . For the inductive step we assume the formula is true for numbers strictly between and , for a given .
We consider two cases: firstly when is even, and secondly when is odd. If is even and , then and so, by assumption,
Substituting the doubling rule from the original question it follows that:
Thus, the result holds for even . Now if is odd, implies
Simplifying, and using the fact that all three quantities are integers, this is equivalent to:
Now as the middle term is even, we have earlier proved the formula for for even numbers in this range, which gives:
Then the self-inverse property of implies . The induction step is now complete. Having proved this result, we finally note that:
and so we can immediately calculate .