Let be a sequence of integers with infinitely many positive and infinitely many negative terms. Suppose that for each positive integer , the numbers leave distinct remainders upon division by . Prove that every integer occurs exactly once in the sequence.
Solution
The conditions of the problem can be reformulated by saying that for every positive integer , the numbers form a complete set of residues modulo . We proceed our proof as the following.
(1) First, we claim that the sequence consists of distinct integers; that is, if , then . Otherwise the set would contain at most distinct residues modulo , violating our new formulation of the conditions of the problem.
(2) Second, we show that numbers in the sequence are fairly close to each other. More precisely, we claim that if , then . For if , then the set would contain two numbers congruent modulo , violating our new formulation of the conditions of the problem.
(3) Third, we show that the set contains a block of consecutive numbers. Indeed, for every positive integer , let and be the indices such that and are respectively the smallest and the largest number among . By (2), we conclude that . By (1), we conclude that consists of all integers between and (inclusive).
(4) Finally, we show that every integer appears in the sequence. Let be an arbitrary integer. Because for infinitely many indices and the terms of the sequence are distinct, it follows that there exists such that . Likewise, there exists such that . Let be an integer with . By (3), we conclude that every number between and , including in particular, is in . Our proof is thus complete.