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Algebra Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Find the answer

Let {ai}i0\{a_{i}\}_{i \geq 0} be a sequence of real numbers defined by an+1=an21220202n1a_{n+1}=a_{n}^{2}-\frac{1}{2^{2020 \cdot 2^{n}-1}} for n0n \geq 0. Determine the largest value for a0a_{0} such that {ai}i0\{a_{i}\}_{i \geq 0} is bounded.

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

Let a0=122020(t+1t)a_{0}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}^{2020}}\left(t+\frac{1}{t}\right), with t1t \geq 1. (If a0<122018a_{0}<\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}^{2018}} then no real tt exists, but we ignore these values because a0a_{0} is smaller.) Then, we can prove by induction that an=1220202n(t2n+1t2n)a_{n}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}^{2020 \cdot 2^{n}}}\left(t^{2^{n}}+\frac{1}{t^{2^{n}}}\right). For this to be bounded, it is easy to see that we just need t2n220202n=(t22020)2n\frac{t^{2^{n}}}{\sqrt{2}^{2020 \cdot 2^{n}}}=\left(\frac{t}{\sqrt{2}^{2020}}\right)^{2^{n}} to be bounded, since the second term approaches 0. We see that this is is equivalent to t22020/2t \leq 2^{2020 / 2}, which means a0122020(22020+(12)2020)=1+122020a_{0} \leq \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}^{2020}}\left(\sqrt{2}^{2020}+\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\right)^{2020}\right)=1+\frac{1}{2^{2020}}.

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