Let be a positive integer. Find the number of permutations of the sequence satisfying
, 2020
Solutions — 2
Solution 1
Denote by the number of permutations that satisfy (*). It is easy to see that and .
Lemma 1. Let . If a permutation satisfies (*) then either , or and .
Proof. Let be the index for which . If then we are done.
If then, by , we have , so . Since , the only choice for is .
Now suppose that . For every we have , so . Moreover, , so . Now the numbers are all greater than ; but there are only such values; this is not possible.
If then must be a permutation of the numbers satisfying ; there are such permutations. The last inequality in (*), , holds true automatically.
If , then must be a permutation of satisfying ; there are such permutations. The last two inequalities in (*) hold true automatically by .
Hence, the sequence ( ) satisfies the recurrence relation for . The first two elements are and , so by a trivial induction we have .
Solution 2
We claim that all sought permutations are of the following kind. Split into singletons and pairs of adjacent numbers. In each pair, swap the two numbers and keep the singletons unchanged.
Such permutations correspond to tilings of a chessboard using dominoes and unit squares; it is well-known that the number of such tilings is the Fibonacci number .
The claim follows by induction from
Lemma 2. Assume that is a permutation satisfying (*), and is an integer such that and . (If , the condition is empty.) Then either , or and .
Proof. Choose with . Since , we have either or . If then we are done, so assume .
Notice that one of the numbers among the numbers is at least , because there are only values between and . Let be an index with and ; then , so that all the inequalities turn into equalities, hence and . If , we are done.
Suppose that . Then the chain of inequalities should also turn into a chain of equalities. From this point we can find contradictions in several ways; for example by pointing to which cannot be an integer, or considering
the product of the numbers ; the numbers are distinct and greater than , so
Notice that for . This leads to the contradiction
Therefore, the case is not possible.