Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
A sequence of positive integers a1,a2,,a2017a_{1}, a_{2}, \ldots, a_{2017} has the property that for all integers mm where 1m20171 \leq m \leq 2017, 3(i=1mai)2=i=1mai33\left(\sum_{i=1}^{m} a_{i}\right)^{2}=\sum_{i=1}^{m} a_{i}^{3}. Compute a1337a_{1337}.

Solution

Solution:
I claim that ai=3ia_{i}=3i for all ii. We can conjecture that the sequence should just be the positive multiples of three because the natural numbers satisfy the property that the square of their sum is the sum of their cubes, and prove this by induction. At i=1i=1, we have that 3ai2=ai33 a_{i}^{2}=a_{i}^{3}, so ai=3a_{i}=3. Now assuming this holds for i=mi=m, we see that
3(i=1m+1ai)2=3(am+1+i=1mai)2=3am+12+i=1mai3+6am+1i=1mai=3am+12+i=1mai3+6am+13(m(m+1)2)=i=1m+1ai3 \begin{aligned} 3\left(\sum_{i=1}^{m+1} a_{i}\right)^{2} & =3\left(a_{m+1}+\sum_{i=1}^{m} a_{i}\right)^{2} \\ & =3 a_{m+1}^{2}+\sum_{i=1}^{m} a_{i}^{3}+6 a_{m+1} \sum_{i=1}^{m} a_{i} \\ & =3 a_{m+1}^{2}+\sum_{i=1}^{m} a_{i}^{3}+6 a_{m+1} \cdot 3\left(\frac{m(m+1)}{2}\right) \\ & =\sum_{i=1}^{m+1} a_{i}^{3} \end{aligned}
Therefore,
am+13=3am+12+am+1(9m2+9m)0=am+123am+1(9m2+9m)0=(am+1(3m+3))(am+1+3m) \begin{aligned} a_{m+1}^{3} & =3 a_{m+1}^{2}+a_{m+1}\left(9 m^{2}+9 m\right) \\ 0 & =a_{m+1}^{2}-3 a_{m+1}-\left(9 m^{2}+9 m\right) \\ 0 & =\left(a_{m+1}-(3 m+3)\right)\left(a_{m+1}+3 m\right) \end{aligned}
and because the sequence is positive, am+1=3m+3a_{m+1}=3 m+3, which completes the induction. Then a1337=13373=4011a_{1337}=1337 \cdot 3=4011.

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