wu :: forums
« wu :: forums - Parity with powers and the greatest integer »

Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register.
May 18th, 2024, 12:15am

RIDDLES SITE WRITE MATH! Home Home Help Help Search Search Members Members Login Login Register Register
   wu :: forums
   riddles
   putnam exam (pure math)
(Moderators: Grimbal, Eigenray, towr, SMQ, Icarus, william wu)
   Parity with powers and the greatest integer
« Previous topic | Next topic »
Pages: 1  Reply Reply Notify of replies Notify of replies Send Topic Send Topic Print Print
   Author  Topic: Parity with powers and the greatest integer  (Read 453 times)
ecoist
Senior Riddler
****





   


Gender: male
Posts: 405
Parity with powers and the greatest integer  
« on: Aug 14th, 2006, 5:21pm »
Quote Quote Modify Modify

(Wish I had thought of this one!)
 
Is there a positive real number r such that, for all positive integers n, |rn| (equal the greatest integer less or equal rn) has the same parity as n (i.e., are congruent modulo 2)?
IP Logged
towr
wu::riddles Moderator
Uberpuzzler
*****



Some people are average, some are just mean.

   


Gender: male
Posts: 13730
Re: Parity with powers and the greatest integer  
« Reply #1 on: Aug 15th, 2006, 12:45am »
Quote Quote Modify Modify

Sounds familiar, I'd go with yes.
 
If you can find an r and s with -1 < s < 0 and r^n - s^n = 0 (mod 2), and are the solutions to a quadratic you get when trying to find the closed form for an linear integer recurrence equation, then |r^n| alternates between 1 and 0 (mod 2)  
There's should be another thread on it somewhere.
« Last Edit: Aug 15th, 2006, 12:51am by towr » IP Logged

Wikipedia, Google, Mathworld, Integer sequence DB
Eigenray
wu::riddles Moderator
Uberpuzzler
*****






   


Gender: male
Posts: 1948
Re: Parity with powers and the greatest integer  
« Reply #2 on: Aug 17th, 2006, 1:16pm »
Quote Quote Modify Modify

Yes, in fact uncountably many such.
IP Logged
Pages: 1  Reply Reply Notify of replies Notify of replies Send Topic Send Topic Print Print

« Previous topic | Next topic »

Powered by YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.4!
Forum software copyright © 2000-2004 Yet another Bulletin Board