Let be a polynomial of degree not exceeding , and suppose that among the numbers , the difference of any two of them is an integer. Prove that is also an integer.
Solution
Without loss of generality, assume is an integer (otherwise, consider instead the function ). We need only prove that and are both integers.
We use mathematical induction to prove a more general proposition: if an -th degree polynomial satisfies that are all integers, then for any integer , is also an integer.
First, for the base case , is a constant polynomial, so the proposition clearly holds.
Suppose the proposition holds for all . Then for a -th degree polynomial such that the values are all integers, consider the function . It is easy to see that is a polynomial of degree , and that are all integers. By the induction hypothesis, takes integer values whenever is an integer. Since for nonnegative integers we have , and for negative integers we have . Therefore, when is an integer, is also an integer.