Let denote the set of positive integers. Consider a function . For any we write . Suppose that has the following two properties: (i) If , then ; (ii) The set is finite. Prove that the sequence is periodic. (Singapore)
Solution
We split the solution into three steps. In the first of them, we show that the function is injective and explain how this leads to a useful visualization of . Then comes the second step, in which most of the work happens: its goal is to show that for any the sequence is an arithmetic progression. Finally, in the third step we put everything together, thus solving the problem. with . By , every positive integer has the property that is a difference of two integers and thus integral as well. But for this is only possible if . Thereby, the injectivity of is established. Now recall that due to condition (ii) there are finitely many positive integers such that is the disjoint union of and . Notice that by plugging into condition we get for all . We contend that every positive integer may be expressed uniquely in the form for some and . The uniqueness follows from the injectivity of . The existence can be proved by induction on in the following way. If , then we may take ; otherwise there is some ; and and if . For every integer , the interval contains exactly elements of the row . Therefore, the number of elements from the last rows of the Table contained in does not depend on . It is not possible that none of these intervals contains an element from the last rows, because infinitely many numbers appear in these rows. It follows that for each the interval contains at least one member from these rows. This yields that for every positive integer , the interval contains at least elements from the last rows; therefore, there exists an index with , possibly depending on , such that our interval contains at least elements from the row. In this situation we have Finally, since there are finitely many possibilities for , there exists an index such that the set is infinite. Thereby we have found the "dense row" promised above. By assumption , for every the number is a positive integer not exceeding This leaves us with finitely many choices for , which means that there exists a number such that the set is infinite. Notice that we have for all . Now we are prepared to prove that the numbers in the row form an arithmetic progression, thus coming to a contradiction with our assumption. Let us fix any positive integer . Since the set is infinite, we can choose a number such that . Notice that both numbers are divisible by . Thus, the difference between these numbers is also divisible by . Since the absolute value of this difference is less than , it has to vanish, so we get . Hence, it is indeed true that all rows of the Table are arithmetic progressions. Step 3. Keeping the above notation in force, we denote the step of the row of the table by . Now we claim that we have for all , where To see this, let any be given and denote the index of the row in which it appears in the Table by . Then we have for all , and thus indeed This concludes the solution. Comment 1. There are some alternative ways to complete the second part once the index corresponding to a "dense row" is found. For instance, one may show that for some integer the set is infinite, and then one may conclude with a similar divisibility argument. Comment 2. It may be checked that, conversely, any way to fill out the Table with finitely many arithmetic progressions so that each positive integer appears exactly once, gives rise to a function satisfying the two conditions mentioned in the problem. For example, we may arrange the positive integers as follows: | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | | | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | | 1 | 5 | 9 | 13 | 17 | | | 3 | 7 | 11 | 15 | 19 | | This corresponds to the function As this example shows, it is not true that the function has to be constant.