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Berkeley Math Circle

Number theory Difficulty 5.0 AIME Prove it United States

Problem:
Prove that there exists an infinite sequence of a1,a2,…a_{1}, a_{2}, \ldots positive integers such that the following condition holds: gcd⁡(am,an)=1\operatorname{gcd}\left(a_{m}, a_{n}\right)=1 if and only if ∣m−n∣=1|m-n|=1.

Solution

Solution:
Enumerate the primes p1,q1,p2,q2,…p_{1}, q_{1}, p_{2}, q_{2}, \ldots and define
an=pnqn⋅{∏k=1n−2pkn even ∏k=1n−2qkn odd.  a_{n}=p_{n} q_{n} \cdot \begin{cases}\prod_{k=1}^{n-2} p_{k} & n \text{ even } \\ \prod_{k=1}^{n-2} q_{k} & n \text{ odd. }\end{cases}
This works by construction. The idea is that you just take every pair i<ji<j you want to not be relatively prime (meaning ∣i−j∣≥2|i-j| \geq 2) and throw in a prime. You can't do this by using a different prime for every pair (since each aia_{i} must be finite) and you can't use the same prime for a fixed ii, so you do the next best thing and alternate using even and odd and you're done.

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