Problem:
is a set of complex numbers such that if , then and . Suppose that the number of elements of with absolute value at most is finite. What is the largest possible value of ?
Solution
Solution:
First, if contained some with absolute value , then (by the first condition) every power of would be in , and would contain infinitely many different numbers of absolute value . This is a contradiction.
Now suppose contains some number of absolute value and argument . If is not an integer multiple of , then has some power whose argument lies strictly between and . Then has absolute value between and , since lies on the unit circle with angle strictly between and . But , so this is a contradiction.
This shows that the only possible elements of with absolute value are and the points on the unit circle whose arguments are multiples of , giving .
To show that is attainable, we need to show that there exists a possible set containing all these points. Let be the set of all numbers of the form , where are integers and is a complex cube root of . Since , is closed under multiplication and addition. Then, if we let be the set of numbers such that , has the required properties, and it contains the complex numbers specified, so we're in business.