Saturday, 24 August 2013

Map of increasing positive integer sequence to the rationals

Map of increasing positive integer sequence to the rationals

This is related to my answer of Limit of recursive sequence $a_{n+1} =
\frac{a_n}{1- \{a_n\}}$ and seems to be an interesting question.
Let $0 < a_1 < a_2 < \ldots < a_n$ be an increasing sequence of $n$ integers.
Define $c(a) = 1 + a_n[1 + (1+a_{n-1})[1 + (1 + a_{n-2})[1 + \ldots
(1+a_3) [ 1 + (1 + a_2)]]\ldots ]$
and $d(a) = a_n (1+a_{n-1})(1+a_{n-2})\cdots (1+a_2)(1+a_1)$.
The definition of $c$ seems a bit ambiguous for the beginning, so let's
specify $c(a_1) = 1$ and $c(a_1,a_2) = 1 + a_2$, and $c(a_1,a_2,a_3) = 1 +
a_3(1+(1+a_2))$. Also $d(a_1) = a_1$ and $d(a_2) = a_2(1+a_1)$.
Is the mapping $a \mapsto d(a)/c(a)$ injective as a mapping from $X_n \to
\mathbb{Q}$ where $X_n$ is a strictly increasing positive integer sequence
of length $n$? As $n$ tends to $\infty$ what is the range?
For example, with $a_i = i$, we have $\frac{n n!}{1+n(1 +
n(1+6(1+5(1+(4)(1+3)))\ldots)}$
$ \frac{1}{1}, \frac{2*2}{1+2}=\frac{4}{3},
\frac{3*3*2}{1+3(1+3)}=\frac{18}{13},
\frac{4*4*3*2}{1+4(1+4(1+3)))}=\frac{96}{69},\ldots $
I guess it would also be nice to prove whether the remainder sequence of
the other problem on these rationals gives $a_n$ as the limit, but that
might be more appropriate for that thread.

No comments:

Post a Comment