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Algebra Difficulty 7.6 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it

20. Given a strictly increasing unbounded sequence of positive numbers a1,a2,a_{1}, a_{2}, \cdots. Prove:
(1) There exists a positive integer k0k_{0} such that for all kk0k \geqslant k_{0}, we have a1a2+a2a3++akak+1<k1\frac{a_{1}}{a_{2}}+\frac{a_{2}}{a_{3}}+\cdots+\frac{a_{k}}{a_{k+1}}<k-1.
(2) When kk is sufficiently large, we have a1a2+a2a3++akak+1<k1985\frac{a_{1}}{a_{2}}+\frac{a_{2}}{a_{3}}+\cdots+\frac{a_{k}}{a_{k+1}}<k-1985 (19th All-Soviet Union Mathematics Competition).

Solution

20. Let Sk=a1a2+a2a3++akak+1S_{k}=\frac{a_{1}}{a_{2}}+\frac{a_{2}}{a_{3}}+\cdots+\frac{a_{k}}{a_{k+1}}, it can be proven that for any M>0M>0, there exists a positive integer k0k_{0} such that when kk0k \geqslant k_{0}, we have
Sk<kMS_{k}<k-M

From this, we can conclude that (1) and (2) both hold.
In fact, since a1,a2,a_{1}, a_{2}, \cdots is strictly increasing, we have
kSk=i=1kai+1aiai+11ak+1i=1k(ai+1ai)=1a1ak+1k-S_{k}=\sum_{i=1}^{k} \frac{a_{i+1}-a_{i}}{a_{i+1}} \geqslant \frac{1}{a_{k+1}} \sum_{i=1}^{k}\left(a_{i+1}-a_{i}\right)=1-\frac{a_{1}}{a_{k+1}}

Since a1,a2,a_{1}, a_{2}, \cdots is unbounded, we have limkak=+\lim _{k \rightarrow \infty} a_{k}=+\infty, thus there exists k1k_{1} such that when kk1k \geqslant k_{1}, a1ak+1<12\frac{a_{1}}{a_{k+1}}<\frac{1}{2}.

Therefore, for any kk1k \geqslant k_{1}, we have
Sk<k12S_{k}<k-\frac{1}{2}

Let b1=ak1+1,b2=ak1+2,b_{1}=a_{k_{1}+1}, b_{2}=a_{k_{1}+2}, \cdots, then the sequence {bk}\left\{b_{k}\right\} is also a monotonic and unbounded sequence of positive numbers. From (2), we know there exists k2k_{2} such that when kk2k \geqslant k_{2},
b1b2+b2b3++bkbk+1<k12\frac{b_{1}}{b_{2}}+\frac{b_{2}}{b_{3}}+\cdots+\frac{b_{k}}{b_{k+1}}<k-\frac{1}{2}

Thus, for any kk1+k2k \geqslant k_{1}+k_{2}, we have Sk<k1S_{k}<k-1.
By continuing this process, (1) holds.

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