Let be a sequence of real numbers from the interval . The sequence of positive integers is defined as follows: , , where is the smallest positive integer for which . Prove that for any indexes the inequality holds.
(Nazar Serdyuk)
Ukrainian National Mathematical Olympiad
Solution
Note that we can put , then we would get . First, let's prove the following lemma:
Lemma. For all the condition holds: .
Proof:
Thus, there must be at least .
Let's choose some positive integer . First, write down the inequalities of the form , .
Add up all these inequalities: and then we have that
Now we just put , and get the desired inequality from the problem: .
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