AlgebraDifficulty 8.5ShortlistProve itUnited States
Choose positive integers b1,b2,… satisfying 1=12b1>22b2>32b3>42b4>… and let r denote the largest real number satisfying n2bn≥r for all positive integers n. What are the possible values of r across all possible choices of the sequence (bn)?
Solution
The answer is 0≤r≤1/2. Obviously r≥0. In one direction, we show that Claim (Greedy bound) — For all integers n, we have n2bn≤21+2n1. Proof. This is by induction on n. For n=1 it is given. For the inductive step we have bn<n2(n−1)2bn−1≤n2(21+2(n−1)1)=2(n−1)n3=21[n2+n+1+n−11]=2n(n+1)+21[1+n−11]≤2n(n+1)+1 So bn<2n(n+1)+1 and since bn is an integer, bn≤2n(n+1). This implies the result. □
We now give a construction. For r=1/2 we take bn=21n(n+1); for r=0 we take bn=1.
Claim (Explicit construction, given by Nikolai Beluhov) — Fix 0<r<1/2. Let N be large enough that ⌈rn2+n⌉<21n(n+1) for all n≥N. Then the following sequence works: bn={⌈rn2+n⌉2n2+nn≥Nn<N. Proof. We certainly have n2bn=n2rn2+n+O(1)n→∞r. Mainly, we contend bnn−2 is strictly decreasing. We need only check this for n≥N; in fact n2bn≥n2rn2+n>(n+1)2[r(n+1)2+(n+1)]+1>(n+1)2bn+1 where the middle inequality is true since it rearranges to n1>(n+1)2n+2. □
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