Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2015

Number theory Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it Romania

Does there exist a sequence of positive integers a1,a2,a3,a_1, a_2, a_3, \dots such that ama_m and ana_n are coprime if and only if the indices mm and nn are one unit apart?

Solution

The answer is in the affirmative. The idea is to consider a sequence of pairwise distinct primes p1,p2,p3,p_1, p_2, p_3, \dots, cover the positive integers by a sequence of finite non-empty sets InI_n such that ImI_m and InI_n are disjoint if and only if mm and nn are one unit apart, and set an=iInpia_n = \prod_{i \in I_n} p_i, n=1,2,3,n = 1, 2, 3, \dots. For instance, we may take
In={2n4k1:k=0,1,,(n1)/2}{2n4k2:k=1,2,,n/21}{2n}, I_n = \{2n - 4k - 1: k = 0, 1, \dots, \lfloor(n-1)/2\rfloor\} \cup \{2n - 4k - 2: k = 1, 2, \dots, \lfloor n/2 \rfloor - 1\} \cup \{2n\},
n=1,2,3,n = 1, 2, 3, \dots, where the set in the middle is understood to be empty for n=1,2,3n = 1, 2, 3. It is readily checked that InI_n and In+1I_{n+1} are disjoint for every index nn, and, if the indices mm and nn are at least two units apart, then ImI_m and InI_n both contain m+nmnem + n - |m-n| - e, where e=0e = 0 if mm and nn have opposite parities, and e=1e = 1 otherwise. This ends the proof.

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