A Study Guide

The book has six chapters: Methods of Proof, Algebra, Real Analysis, Geometry and

Trigonometry, Number Theory, Combinatorics and Probability, divided into subchapters

such as LinearAlgebra, Sequences and Series, Geometry, andArithmetic. All subchapters

are self-contained and independent of each other and can be studied in any order. In most

cases they reflect standard undergraduate courses or fields of mathematics. The sections

within each subchapter are best followed in the prescribed order.

If you are an undergraduate student trying to acquire skills or test your knowledge

in a certain field, study first a regular textbook and make sure that you understand it very

well. Then choose the appropriate chapter or subchapter of this book and proceed section

by section. Read first the theoretical background and the examples from the introductory

part; then do the problems. These are listed in increasing order of difficulty, but even

the very first can be tricky. Don’t get discouraged; put effort and imagination into each

problem; and only if all else fails, look at the solution from the back of the book. But

even if you are successful, read the solution, since many times it gives a new insight and,

more important, opens the door toward more advanced mathematics.

Beware! The last few problems of each section can be very hard. It might be a

good idea to skip them at the first encounter and return to them as you become more

experienced.

If you are a Putnam competitor, then as you go on with the study of the book try

your hand at the true Putnam problems (which have been published in three excellent

volumes). Identify your weaknesses and insist on those chapters of Putnam and Beyond.

Every once in a while, for a problem that you solved, write down the solution in detail,

then compare it to the one given at the end of the book. It is very important that your

solutions be correct, structured, convincing, and easy to follow.

An instructor can add some of the problems from the book to a regular course in

order to stimulate and challenge the better students. Some of the theoretical subjects can

also be incorporated in the course to give better insight and a new perspective. Putnam

xvi A Study Guide

recommend beginning with the first chapter. Students should be encouraged to come up

with their own original solutions.

If you are a graduate student in mathematics, it is important that you know and

understand the contents of this book. First, mastering problems and learning how to write

down arguments are essential matters for good performance in doctoral examinations.

Second, most of the presented facts are building blocks of graduate courses; knowing

them will make these courses natural and easy.

“Don’t bother to just be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be

better than yourself’’ (W. Faulkner).

Methods of Proof

In this introductory chapter we explain some methods of mathematical proof. They

are argument by contradiction, the principle of mathematical induction, the pigeonhole

principle, the use of an ordering on a set, and the principle of invariance.

The basic nature of these methods and their universal use throughout mathematics

makes this separate treatment necessary. In each case we have selected what we think

are the most appropriate examples, solving some of them in detail and asking you to train

your skills on the others. And since these are fundamental methods in mathematics, you

should try to understand them in depth, for “it is better to understand many things than

to know many things’’(Gustave Le Bon).

1.1 Argument by Contradiction

The method of argument by contradiction proves a statement in the following way:

First, the statement is assumed to be false. Then, a sequence of logical deductions yields

a conclusion that contradicts either the hypothesis (indirect method), or a fact known to

be true (reductio ad absurdum). This contradiction implies that the original statement

must be true.

This is a method that Euclid loved, and you can find it applied in some of the most

beautiful proofs from his Elements. Euclid’s most famous proof is that of the infinitude
of prime numbers.

Euclid’s theorem. There are infinitely many prime numbers.

Proof. Assume, to the contrary, that only finitely many prime numbers exist. List them

as p1 = 2, p2 = 3, p3 = 5,...,pn. The number N = p1p2 ··· pn + 1 is divisible by

a prime p, yet is coprime to p1, p2,...,pn. Therefore, p does not belong to our list of

all prime numbers, a contradiction. Hence the initial assumption was false, proving that

there are infinitely many primes.

2 1 Methods of Proof

We continue our illustration of the method of argument by contradiction with an

example of Euler.

Example. Prove that there is no polynomial

P (x) = anxn + an−1xn−1 +···+ a0

with integer coefficients and of degree at least 1 with the property that P (0), P (1), P (2),

... are all prime numbers.

Solution. Assume the contrary and let P (0) = p, p prime. Then a0 = p and P (kp) is

divisible by p for all k ≥ 1. Because we assumed that all these numbers are prime, it

follows that P (kp) = p for k ≥ 1. Therefore, P (x) takes the same value infinitely many

times, a contradiction. Hence the conclusion.

The last example comes from I. Tomescu’s book Problems in Combinatorics (Wiley,

1985).

Example. Let F = {E1, E2,...,Es} be a family of subsets with r elements of some

set X. Show that if the intersection of any r + 1 (not necessarily distinct) sets in F is

nonempty, then the intersection of all sets in F in nonempty.

Solution. Again we assume the contrary, namely that the intersection of all sets in F is

empty. Consider the set E1 = {x1, x2,...,xr}. Because none of the xi, i = 1, 2,...,r,

lies in the intersection of all the Ej ’s (this intersection being empty), it follows that for

each i we can find some Eji such that xi ∈/ Eji . Then

E1 ∩ Ei1 ∩ Ei2 ∩···∩ Eir = ∅,

element of E1. But this contradicts the hypothesis. It follows that our initial assumption

was false, and hence the sets from the family F have a nonempty intersection.

The following problems help you practice this method, which will be used often in

the book.

1. Prove that √2 + √3 + √5 is an irrational number.

2. Show that no set of nine consecutive integers can be partitioned into two sets with

the product of the elements of the first set equal to the product of the elements of

the second set.

3. Find the least positive integer n such that any set of n pairwise relatively prime

integers greater than 1 and less than 2005 contains at least one prime number.

1.2 Mathematical Induction 3

4. Every point of three-dimensional space is colored red, green, or blue. Prove that one

of the colors attains all distances, meaning that any positive real number represents

the distance between two points of this color.

5. The union of nine planar surfaces, each of area equal to 1, has a total area equal to

5. Prove that the overlap of some two of these surfaces has an area greater than or

equal to 1

9.

6. Show that there does not exist a function f : Z → {1, 2, 3}satisfying f (x) = f (y)

for all x, y ∈ Z such that |x − y|∈{2, 3, 5}.

7. Show that there does not exist a strictly increasing function f : N → N satisfying

f (2) = 3 and f (mn) = f (m)f (n) for all m, n ∈ N.

8. Determine all functions f : N → N satisfying

xf (y) + yf (x) = (x + y)f (x2 + y2

)
for all positive integers x and y.

9. Show that the interval [0, 1] cannot be partitioned into two disjoint sets A and B

such that B = A + a for some real number a.

10. Let n > 1 be an arbitrary real number and let k be the number of positive prime

numbers less than or equal to n. Select k + 1 positive integers such that none of

them divides the product of all the others. Prove that there exists a number among

the chosen k + 1 that is bigger than n.

1.2 Mathematical Induction

The principle of mathematical induction, which lies at the very heart of Peano’s axiomatic

construction of the set of positive integers, is stated as follows.

Induction principle. Given P (n), a property depending on a positive integer n,

(i) if P (n0) is true for some positive integer n0, and

(ii) if for every k ≥ n0, P (k) true implies P (k + 1) true,

then P (n) is true for all n ≥ n0.

This means that when proving a statement by mathematical induction you should (i)

check the base case and (ii) verify the inductive step by showing how to pass from an

arbitrary integer to the next. Here is a simple example from combinatorial geometry.

Example. Finitely many lines divide the plane into regions. Show that these regions can

be colored by two colors in such a way that neighboring regions have different colors.

4 1 Methods of Proof

Solution. We prove this by induction on the number n of lines. The base case n = 1 is

straightforward, color one half-plane black, the other white.

For the inductive step, assume that we know how to color any map defined by k lines.

Add the (k +1)st line to the picture; then keep the color of the regions on one side of this

line the same while changing the color of the regions on the other side. The inductive

step is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Regions that were adjacent previously still have different colors. Regions that share
a segment of the (k + 1)st line, which were part of the same region previously, now lie

on opposite sides of the line. So they have different colors, too. This shows that the new

map satisfies the required property and the induction is complete.

A classical proof by induction is that of Fermat’s so-called little theorem.

Fermat’s little theorem. Let p be a prime number, and n a positive integer. Then np −n

is divisible by p.

Proof. We prove the theorem by induction on n. The base case n = 1 is obvious. Let us

assume that the property is true for n = k and prove it for n = k +1. Using the induction