Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /269 of 520

Number theory Difficulty 6.1 National olympiad Prove it

6. Let a2a \geqslant 2 be a given positive integer. Prove:
(i) For any positive integer nn, there must be n<ann < a^{n};
(ii) For any positive integer nn, there must be a unique integer k0k \geqslant 0, such that akn<ak+1a^{k} \leqslant n < a^{k+1}.

Solution

6. (i) Prove by mathematical induction; (ii) Consider the set T={k:akn,kZ}T=\left\{k: a^{k} \leqslant n, k \in \boldsymbol{Z}\right\}, and apply the conclusion from question 5 to TT.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.