We consider permutations on the set of non-negative integers, i.e. bijective mappings from to , with the following properties:
For all , we have and .
Furthermore, for all integers , we have
Prove that there exist infinitely many integers , such that maps the set onto itself.
Solution
If an infinite number of such do not exist, there must exist some , such that for all there exists an with . Since must always hold, such an can only be , or .
The same must hold for , and so on. This means that, from some on, the function must map “up” into each interval , and also “up” out of each such interval. In order for this to be possible, we must have , and it therefore follows that must hold for all . If this is the case, we have
with
It therefore follows that there exists a such that for , which contradicts the assumption . This is not possible, and we see that an infinite number of with the required properties exist, as claimed.
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