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VMO

Vietnam algebra

Problem

Consider the real sequence such that and

a) Prove that .

b) For each , let . Prove that converges.
Solution
a. First, we prove by induction that , . The base case is trivial. For , we have Assume that for some , by the AM-GM inequality, Therefore, . The inductive step is completed. By the Squeeze theorem, we have .

b. It is clear that implies For all , we obtain that Hence, is bounded above. Note that is increasing, we conclude that is convergent.

Techniques

Recurrence relationsSums and productsQM-AM-GM-HM / Power MeanInduction / smoothing