Let denote the set of all positive integers. Find the largest positive integer satisfying the following condition:
can be partitioned into subsets such that for all integers and all , one can find two distinct elements in with .
Solution
The answer is . For example, take
To verify that the above partition satisfies the requirement of the problem, first observe: the situation of the sum of two distinct elements in :
(i) , when ,
(ii) , when ,
(iii) , when .
Therefore, we must find two distinct elements in whose sum is .
Now suppose that for some , there exist satisfying the requirement of the problem. Clearly, also satisfies the requirement of the problem, so we may assume .
Take . For any index and the 10 numbers 15, 16, ..., 24, each can be represented as a sum of two distinct elements of . Therefore, has at least 5 elements. Since , we have for some . Let . The sums of two distinct elements in can be 15, 16, ..., 24 and these should be sums of any two elements in , that is, and 4 divides 195. This is a contradiction!