Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

Two sequences of positive integers, x1,x2,x3,x_{1}, x_{2}, x_{3}, \ldots and y1,y2,y3,y_{1}, y_{2}, y_{3}, \ldots, are given, such that
yn+1/xn+1>yn/xn y_{n+1} / x_{n+1}>y_{n} / x_{n}
for each n1n \geq 1. Prove that there are infinitely many values of nn such that yn>ny_{n}>\sqrt{n}.

Solution

Solution:

Suppose the statement is false. So there are only finitely many values for which yn>ny_{n}>\sqrt{n}; suppose there are R1R_{1} such values. Let mm be the largest integer such that xn/ynmx_{n} / y_{n} \geq m for all nn (this is possible since every xn/yn>0x_{n} / y_{n}>0; note that it may be the case that m=0m=0 ). We have xn/yn<m+1x_{n} / y_{n}<m+1 for some nn, say n=R2n=R_{2}, and since the sequence (xn/yn)\left(x_{n} / y_{n}\right) is decreasing, we then get xn/yn<m+1x_{n} / y_{n}<m+1 for all nR2n \geq R_{2}. Letting R=R1+R2R=R_{1}+R_{2}, we obtain
ynn and mxn/yn<m+1 y_{n} \leq \sqrt{n} \quad \text{ and } \quad m \leq x_{n} / y_{n}<m+1
for all nn, with at most RR possible exceptions.

Now fix any positive integer NN. The pairs of positive integers (xn,yn)\left(x_{n}, y_{n}\right) for n<N2n<N^{2} are all distinct, since the corresponding values of yn/xny_{n} / x_{n} are strictly increasing; and except for at most RR of them, the remaining ones all satisfy
ynn<N y_{n} \leq \sqrt{n}<N
and
mynxn<myn+yn. m y_{n} \leq x_{n}<m y_{n}+y_{n} .
So we have N1N-1 possible values for yny_{n} (namely 1,2,,N11,2, \ldots, N-1 ), and for each such value, we have yny_{n} choices for xnx_{n} (namely myn,myn+1,,myn+yn1m y_{n}, m y_{n}+1, \ldots, m y_{n}+y_{n}-1 ), giving 1+2++(N1)=1+2+\cdots+(N-1)= N(N1)/2N(N-1) / 2 possible pairs obtained in this way. Hence, counting all the pairs (xn,yn)\left(x_{n}, y_{n}\right) for n<N2n<N^{2}, we have
N21RN(N1)/2. N^{2}-1-R \leq N(N-1) / 2 .
But since RR is fixed, clearly this inequality will become false for large enough NN. At this point we have a contradiction, and the problem is solved.

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