Let be the greatest integer not exceeding . Consider the statements
a. .
b. .
Characterise the pairs of real numbers such that at least one of (a) or (b) is true and characterise the pairs such that both (a) and (b) are true.
Let be the greatest integer not exceeding . Consider the statements
a. .
b. .
Characterise the pairs of real numbers such that at least one of (a) or (b) is true and characterise the pairs such that both (a) and (b) are true.
At least one of (a) or (b) is true unless is an integer, but is not an integer. Exactly one of (a) and (b) is true if none of , , are integers. Both (a) and (b) are true if at least one of , is an integer.
Method: for a real number, write , where is the fractional part of . Then (a) is equivalent to , which in turn is equivalent to . Likewise, equivalent to (b) is the statement: or is an integer or . This relies on the fact that if is not an integer.
The best way of visualising the solution is as follows. Notice first that adding an integer to or to does not change whether or not satisfies (a) or (b). So we can replace by and by . So now we are looking at all points in the unit square . Check first that (a) is satisfied by all points in the lower triangle bounded by the diagonal , plus the endpoints of the diagonal and . Now maps the square onto itself. The satisfying (b) are those points satisfying (a). By the above, these are the in the upper triangle bounded by , plus and . The only points in the square satisfying neither (a) nor (b) are those on the diagonal , apart from and i.e. when neither nor is an integer but is an integer.