MathDB
P9 Sequence

Source: Ukraine TST 2017

May 8, 2019
SequencePeriodic sequencealgebra

Problem Statement

There're two positive inegers a1<a2a_1<a_2. For every positive integer n3n \geq 3 let ana_n be the smallest integer that bigger than an1a_{n-1} and such that there's unique pair 1i<jn11\leq i< j\leq n-1 such that this number equals to ai+aja_i+a_j. Given that there're finitely many even numbers in this sequence. Prove that sequence {an+1an}\{a_{n+1}-a_n \} is periodic starting from some element.