Problem:
A polynomial of degree or less is called happy if
(i) Each coefficient satisfies ;
(ii) is an integer for all integers .
Find the number of happy polynomials of degree or less.
Solution
Solution:
The answer is the "superfactorial"
For , the result is clear. We will prove as an induction step that there are times as many happy polynomials of degree at most as of degree at most .
Let be a happy polynomial of degree at most . We claim that the leading coefficient of is for some integer . One way to see this is using "Lagrange interpolation": let
On the one hand, is clearly a polynomial of degree at most with rational coefficients. On the other hand, for each , we have since all terms for are zero and the remaining term is . Therefore since two distinct polynomials of degree can have at most common values. The leading coefficient of is a sum of terms of the form
so it has the form for .
By the given inequalities, we know that . Given , let
a polynomial of degree at most . For integers , the fraction in the definition of is the integer , from which it is easy to see that is an integer for all integers . Let be the polynomial obtained by reducing each coefficient of mod 1 so as to lie in the interval . Then defines a bijection between
- happy polynomials of degree with th-degree coefficient , and
- happy polynomials of degree .
Since there are possible values of , it follows that there are times as many happy polynomials of degree as of degree .