Thread: Problem 37
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Old September 18th, 2007, 05:54 AM
putnam120 putnam120 is offline
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First we show that the sequence is bounded.

\left|\frac{a_n}{a_{n-1}}\right|\Longrightarrow 1<\left|1+\frac{a_{n-2}}{a_{n-1}}\right|<2 since each term in the sequence is obviously larger than the previous term.

now define R_n=\frac{a_n}{a_{n-1}} and look at the ratio \frac{R_{n+1}}{R_n}=\frac{a_{n+1}a_{n-1}}{a_n^2} which is just \frac{a_n^2-1}{a_n^2}<1. (easy induction proof ill leave the verification to the reader, but if this were for some competition i would include the proof ) so the sequence is monotonically decreasing.

and every bounded monotonic sequence converges.

Last edited by putnam120; September 18th, 2007 at 10:27 AM.