Let be a finite set of positive integers greater than . A subset of is called good, if for every there exists some with . Prove that the number of good subsets of is odd.
, 2010
Solution
Consider the set of all (ordered) pairs with and for all and . Clearly and are disjoint for any . We have the following claims.
i. If is good, then the number of pairs is odd: In fact, in this case the only such pair in is .
ii. If is not good, then the number of pairs is even: Let contain the numbers that are relatively prime to all numbers in . Because is not good, is non-empty. Now, note that if and only if , hence the number of choices for is a power of .
Finally, note that is the only element of of the form , hence groups the elements of into pairs. Thus, has an odd number of elements. By (i) and (ii), this implies that the number of good subsets is odd, completing the proof.
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