Let be a positive integer no less than and be a real number. Prove that, if both and are rational numbers, then there exists a positive integer , such that both and are rational numbers.
Solution
First we prove a lemma.
Lemma Let be a real number. If is rational, then is rational for any positive integer .
We prove by induction on . By , we get that the lemma is true for .
We suppose that the lemma is true for ().
Since
then we conclude that the lemma is true for and our induction is complete.
By the lemma, setting , for , , it follows that , are rational numbers. Since , the statement holds.
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