The numbers are written on a blackboard. A student chooses any two of the numbers, say , erases them and then writes down . He continues to do this until only one number is left on the blackboard. What is this number?
Solution
We shall prove by induction that if the original numbers are , , then the last number is .
The assertion is certainly true for , the base case. Now suppose it is true for . Consider numbers written on the board. After one operation, we are left with numbers. Without loss of generality, we can assume that the student erases and writes . After a further operations, we are left with the number
This completes the proof of the inductive step. Thus the last number is
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