Petya chose 100 pairwise distinct positive real numbers, each less than , and arranged these numbers on a circle. Then he performs the following moves. By one move he takes some three consecutive numbers (in this order) and replaces the middle number by . Find the greatest possible such that Petya can choose initial numbers and perform several moves so that in the resulting arrangement there are integers.
Solution
Estimate. We will show that the number of integers never exceeds .
We will track the differences between each number and the next one in clockwise order. If three consecutive numbers were , , and , their differences were and . After applying the operation to , the numbers become , , and , with differences and . Thus, the operation simply swaps two adjacent differences. Initially, all differences were non-integer, so they remain non-integer at all times. Therefore, two integers can never appear consecutively, meaning their count cannot exceed .
Example. First, arrange the numbers and alternately in a circle. If we perform the operation on each , it will be replaced by , making every other number an integer.
Now, we need to adjust the example so that all numbers become distinct. To do this, it is sufficient to add a small unique value to each and to each the sum of the values added to its neighbors. For instance, choosing , we can add to consecutive s the numbers ; then, to the s, we add . As a result, all numbers will become distinct.
The explicitly constructed example looks as follows: