Let be a set of positive integers and let be a positive integer. Set is said to be -thin if there are positive integers so that for all and all , . Suppose that is a -thin set for and that is the set of all positive integers. Show that
Solution
For any positive integer , let . Consider a -thin set with the associated integers . Let be the maximum of these integers. We let
For any fixed integer , let . Now , , are mutually disjoint subsets of . Also . Thus . (Note: this yields . This shows that the probability that any positive integer belongs to is .)
Now applying this result to the sets , with being the maximum of all the associated integers, we get . Since and letting , we have, by summing over all ,
The above must hold for all positive integer . Since is a constant, this is impossible unless or .
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