Find all infinite sequences of positive integers satisfying the following properties:
a. ,
b. there are no positive integers , not necessarily distinct, such that ,
c. there are infinitely many positive integers such that .
Find all infinite sequences of positive integers satisfying the following properties:
a. ,
b. there are no positive integers , not necessarily distinct, such that ,
c. there are infinitely many positive integers such that .
The only solution is to have for all , giving the sequence .
Let . First, we show that for any such sequence, we must have for all positive integers . Suppose for some that this was not the case. Then are terms of the sequence that are all in the set . Partition into two-element sets of the form . By the pigeonhole principle, one of the two-element sets is such that both of its elements are terms of the sequence, so that for some . But we have , so this contradicts (b). Thus we have established for all .
Now suppose we have consecutive terms of the sequence such that for all between and inclusive, . By (c), there must exist some index greater than satisfying . Write for and using the division algorithm. Then . By assumption , so , a contradiction. Therefore, for any block of consecutive terms of the sequence, one of them satisfies .
Because of (a), we have . Consider . The previous inequality implies that for all we have , and . By the previous paragraph one of these terms must satisfy . Therefore we must have and by (a) for all .
Likewise, for , we have for all and , so since one of these terms must satisfy we must have and then by (a) for all .
Now suppose . Observe that , contradicting (b). Therefore . Furthermore, we know from the second paragraph that every term of the sequence satisfies . At the same time, the first paragraph says , or . Therefore for every .