Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /19 of 22

Algebra Difficulty 6.5 National Olympiad Prove it Romania

Show that there exists a proper non-empty subset SS of the set of real numbers such that, for every real number xx, the set {nx+S:nN}\{nx+S: n \in \mathbb{N}\} is finite, where nx+S={nx+s:sS}nx + S = \{nx + s: s \in S\}.

Solution

Let HH be a Hamel basis; that is, HH is a set of real numbers such that every real number xx can uniquely be written in the form
x=hHq(x,h)h, x = \sum_{h \in H} q(x, h) \cdot h,
where the q(x,h)q(x, h) are all rational and vanish for all but a finite number (depending on xx) of hh's. The existence of Hamel bases can be proved via Zorn's lemma or Zermelo's well ordering theorem or any other statement equivalent to the axiom of choice.

We are now going to prove that the set SS of those real numbers xx whose q(x,h)q(x, h) in ()(*) are all integral satisfies the required condition.

To this end, fix a real number xx. Since the conclusion is clear if x=0x = 0, let xx be different from 00 and let m(x)m(x) be the least common multiple of the denominators of the non-vanishing q(x,h)q(x, h) in ()(*). Finally, notice that m(x)xm(x) \cdot x is a member of SS, to conclude that any set of the form nx+Snx + S, where nn is a non-negative integer, must be one of the sets rx+Srx + S, r=0,1,,m(x)1r = 0, 1, \dots, m(x) - 1.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.