Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 6 / 251 of 400 #1251 of 1964

Problem 1251

National Olympiad, first round
Combinatorics Difficulty 6.3 Find the answer

Original in Hungarian; translated with Google translate; polished by myself.

We say that a set A⊆ZA \subseteq \Bbb Z is irregular if, for any different elements x,y∈Ax, y \in A, there is no element of the form x+k(y−x)x + k(y - x) different from xx and yy (where kk is an integer). Is there an infinite irregular set?

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Official solution

To show that there exists an infinite irregular set A⊆Z A \subseteq \mathbb{Z} , we will construct such a set step-by-step.

1. Initialization:
- Start with a0=0 a_0 = 0 .

2. Inductive Hypothesis:
- Assume that we have already defined a0,a1,…,an a_0, a_1, \ldots, a_n such that:
- a0<a1<⋯<an a_0 < a_1 < \cdots < a_n are integers.
- The sum sn=∑0≤i<j≤n1aj−ai s_n = \sum_{0 \leq i < j \leq n} \frac{1}{a_j - a_i} is strictly less than 1.

3. **Choosing an+1 a_{n+1} **:
- We need to choose an+1 a_{n+1} such that it is not of the form ai+k(aj−ai) a_i + k(a_j - a_i) for any 0≤i<j≤n 0 \leq i < j \leq n and for any integer k k , and also ensure that sn+1=sn+∑0≤i≤n1an+1−ai s_{n+1} = s_n + \sum_{0 \leq i \leq n} \frac{1}{a_{n+1} - a_i} remains strictly less than 1.
- For sufficiently large M M , the number of positive integers in the interval [0,M)[0, M) that are of the form ai+k(aj−ai) a_i + k(a_j - a_i) is approximately Maj−ai \frac{M}{a_j - a_i} . This means that at least (1−sn)M (1 - s_n)M integers in that interval are not of the form ai+k(aj−ai) a_i + k(a_j - a_i) for any 0≤i<j≤n 0 \leq i < j \leq n .

4. **Ensuring an+1 a_{n+1} is sufficiently large**:
- Choose an+1 a_{n+1} such that it is larger than 2an 2a_n and is not of the form ai+k(aj−ai) a_i + k(a_j - a_i) for any 0≤i<j≤n 0 \leq i < j \leq n .
- Additionally, ensure that an+1 a_{n+1} is large enough so that sn+1=sn+∑0≤i≤n1an+1−ai s_{n+1} = s_n + \sum_{0 \leq i \leq n} \frac{1}{a_{n+1} - a_i} remains strictly less than 1.

5. Verification:
- By construction, an+1 a_{n+1} is not of the form ai+k(aj−ai) a_i + k(a_j - a_i) for any 0≤i<j≤n 0 \leq i < j \leq n and for any integer k k .
- The sequence (an)n (a_n)_n thus forms an infinite irregular set.

■\blacksquare

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty, ordering) added by this project.