Determine all finite nonempty sets of positive integers satisfying
where is the greatest common divisor of and .
Solution
1. Understanding the Problem:
We need to determine all finite nonempty sets of positive integers such that for any , the expression is also an element of . Here, denotes the greatest common divisor (gcd) of and .
2. Initial Observations:
- If , then , which implies that if contains any repeated element.
- If , then must be an integer and an element of .
3. Lemma 1:
- Define .
- We need to check if is involutive, i.e., if or .
4. Case Analysis:
- **Case 1: :**
- Here, .
- Since and are distinct, is greater than both and . This implies that must contain larger elements, leading to an infinite set, which contradicts the finiteness of .
- **Case 2: :**
- Let and where .
- Then, .
- Since and are coprime, must be an element of .
5. Finite Set Construction:
- Consider for any positive integer . This trivially satisfies the condition since there are no distinct pairs to consider.
- Consider for :
- For and , we have .
- Then, .
- This implies , which is already true.
6. Verification:
- For , the condition is trivially satisfied.
- For , the condition is satisfied as shown above.
7. Conclusion:
- The only finite nonempty sets that satisfy the given condition are of the form and for .
The final answer is or for .