Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /324 of 520

Number theory Difficulty 6.7 National olympiad Prove it

Let S\mathcal{S} be a set consisting of n3n \geqslant 3 positive integers, none of which is a sum of two other distinct members of S\mathcal{S}. Prove that the elements of S\mathcal{S} may be ordered as a1,a2,,ana_{1}, a_{2}, \ldots, a_{n} so that aia_{i} does not divide ai1+ai+1a_{i-1}+a_{i+1} for all i=2,3,,n1i=2,3, \ldots, n-1. (Ukraine)

Solution

We prove the following stronger statement. Claim. Let S\mathcal{S} be a good set consisting of n2n \geqslant 2 positive integers. Then the elements of S\mathcal{S} may be ordered as a1,a2,,ana_{1}, a_{2}, \ldots, a_{n} so that aiai1+ai+1a_{i} \nmid a_{i-1}+a_{i+1} and aiai1ai+1a_{i} \nmid a_{i-1}-a_{i+1}, for all i=2,3,,n1i=2,3, \ldots, n-1. Proof. Say that the ordering a1,,ana_{1}, \ldots, a_{n} of S\mathcal{S} is nice if it satisfies the required property. We proceed by induction on nn. The base case n=2n=2 is trivial, as there are no restrictions on the ordering. To perform the step of induction, suppose that n3n \geqslant 3. Let a=maxSa=\max \mathcal{S}, and set T=S\{a}\mathcal{T}=\mathcal{S} \backslash\{a\}. Use the inductive hypothesis to find a nice ordering b1,,bn1b_{1}, \ldots, b_{n-1} of T\mathcal{T}. We will show that aa may be inserted into this sequence so as to reach a nice ordering of S\mathcal{S}. In other words, we will show that there exists a j{1,2,,n}j \in\{1,2, \ldots, n\} such that the ordering
Nj=(b1,,bj1,a,bj,bj+1,,bn1) N_{j}=\left(b_{1}, \ldots, b_{j-1}, a, b_{j}, b_{j+1}, \ldots, b_{n-1}\right)
is nice. Assume that, for some jj, the ordering NjN_{j} is not nice, so that some element xx in it divides either the sum or the difference of two adjacent ones. This did not happen in the ordering of T\mathcal{T}, hence x{bj1,a,bj}x \in\left\{b_{j-1}, a, b_{j}\right\} (if, say, bj1b_{j-1} does not exist, then x{a,bj}x \in\left\{a, b_{j}\right\}; a similar agreement is applied hereafter). But the case x=ax=a is impossible: aa cannot divide bj1bjb_{j-1}-b_{j}, since 0<bj1bj<a0<\left|b_{j-1}-b_{j}\right|<a, while abj1+bja \nmid b_{j-1}+b_{j} by Observation A. Therefore x{bj1,bj}x \in\left\{b_{j-1}, b_{j}\right\}. In this case, assign the number xx to the index jj. Suppose now that none of the NjN_{j} is nice. Since there are nn possible indices jj, and only n1n-1 elements in T\mathcal{T}, one of those elements (say, bkb_{k}) is assigned to two different indices, which then should equal kk and k+1k+1. This means that bkb_{k} divides the numbers bk1+ε1ab_{k-1}+\varepsilon_{1} a and a+ε2bk+1a+\varepsilon_{2} b_{k+1}, for some signs ε1,ε2{1,1}\varepsilon_{1}, \varepsilon_{2} \in\{-1,1\}. But then
bk1ε1aε1ε2bk+1(modbk), b_{k-1} \equiv-\varepsilon_{1} a \equiv \varepsilon_{1} \varepsilon_{2} b_{k+1} \quad\left(\bmod b_{k}\right),
and therefore bkbk1ε1ε2bk+1b_{k} \mid b_{k-1}-\varepsilon_{1} \varepsilon_{2} b_{k+1}, which means that the ordering of T\mathcal{T} was not nice. This contradiction proves the step of induction.

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.