Let be a positive integer, be positive real numbers. For , define
where the subscript of is taken modulo . Prove: the number of subscripts satisfying that does not exceed .
Solution
Define . For every , assume that the maximum value of is attained at , and call
a “nice segment”, where the subscripts are taken modulo . Obviously, the union of all nice segments contains .
Claim There exists a collection of nice segments whose union contains , and moreover, each is contained in at most two segments.
Proof of claim If is a nice segment, the conclusion is trivial. In the following, assume this is not the case. If is contained in nice segments
where and , let and . We can keep the nice segments , and drop the other segments. Now the segments still cover , and at most two of them cover . For each , perform the above operation. Eventually, we find a collection of nice segments with the desired properties.
For the original problem, let , , be a collection of nice segments chosen in the claim. We have
the first inequality is due to each being contained in at most two nice segments; the equality and the next inequality are due to the definition of nice segments; the last inequality is due to the union of the nice segments containing .