Find all integers with for which there exists a sequence of distinct real numbers such that each of the sets forms a 3-term arithmetic progression when arranged in increasing order.
Solution
The values of in question are the multiples of 3 starting with 9. Note that we interpret "distinct" in the problem statement to mean "pairwise distinct" (i.e., no two equal). See the remark below. We first show that such a sequence can only occur when is divisible by 3. If and are the common differences of the arithmetic progressions and for some , then . By scaling we may assume that the smallest common difference that occurs is 1; in this case, all of the common differences are integers. By shifting, we may assume that the are themselves all integers. We now observe that any three consecutive terms in the sequence have pairwise distinct residues modulo 3, forcing to be divisible by 3. We then observe that for any , we obtain a sequence of the desired form of length by concatenating the arithmetic progressions We see that no terms are repeated by noting that the first parenthesized sequence consists of odd numbers; the second sequence consists of multiples of 4; and the remaining numbers and are distinct (because ) but both congruent to 2 mod 4. It remains to show that no such sequence occurs with . We may assume without loss of generality that the smallest common difference among the arithmetic progressions is 1 and occurs for ; by rescaling, shifting, and reversing the sequence as needed, we may assume that and . We then have and In none of these cases does form an arithmetic progression.