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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.8 AIME, harder Prove it Greece

Let m1<m2<<msm_1 < m_2 < \dots < m_s be a sequence of s2s \ge 2 positive integers, none of which can be written as the sum of (two or more) distinct other numbers in the sequence. For every integer rr with 1r<s1 \le r < s prove that rmr+ms(r+1)(s1)r m_r + m_s \ge (r+1)(s-1).

Solution

For k,lk, l with 0kr0 \le k \le r and k+1lsk+1 \le l \le s, we introduce the auxiliary value
T(k,l):=ml+i=1kmi. T(k, l) := m_l + \sum_{i=1}^{k} m_i.

We claim that these 12(r+1)(2sr)\frac{1}{2}(r+1)(2s - r) auxiliary values are all pairwise distinct: Let us assume that T(k,)=T(u,v)T(k, \ell) = T(u, v). Without loss of generality kuk \le u, so that this equality turns into
m=mv+i=k+1umi. m_{\ell} = m_{v} + \sum_{i=k+1}^{u} m_{i}.
But then mm_{\ell} can be written as a sum of distinct other numbers in the sequence, unless =v\ell = v and k=uk = u holds. Hence the auxiliary values indeed are distinct. As altogether there are 12(r+1)(2sr)\frac{1}{2}(r+1)(2s - r) auxiliary values, the largest value T(r,s)T(r, s) must be at least 12(r+1)(2sr)\frac{1}{2}(r+1)(2s - r). This yields
12(r+1)(2sr)T(r,s)=ms+i=1rmims+i=1r(mrr+i). \frac{1}{2}(r+1)(2s - r) \le T(r, s) = m_s + \sum_{i=1}^{r} m_i \le m_s + \sum_{i=1}^{r} (m_r - r + i).
Here we used mimrr+im_i \le m_r - r + i, which follows as the sequence is increasing. The above inequality can be rewritten into
rs+srrmr+ms, rs + s - r \le r \cdot m_r + m_s,
which immediately implies the desired inequality from the problem statement.

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