Volume 7, No.

2, Autumn 2020 108

On the other hand, a sequence {xn }n∈N in which xn+1 = xn + 1

is called a trivial sequence. Therefore, every trivial sequence is
determined by its first term and the largest trivial sequence always
starts with x0 = 1.

We notice that for every x ∈ N\{0, 1}, we have that (x, x2 −1) ∈ P .
This is derived from the relations:

x2 − 1 ≡ 0 (mod (x2 − 1))

and

(x2 − 1)2 − 1 = x4 − 2x2 = x(x3 − 2) ≡ 0 (mod x).

Cases of a pair of the form (x, x2 − 1) are thus named an almost

trivial pair. Consequently, a sequence {xn }n∈N , defined by xn+1 =
x2n − 1 for every n ∈ N, and x0 ≥ 2, is sheer referred to as an
almost trivial sequence. It is then the case that a unique almost
trivial sequence with initial term x results if x ∈ N \ {0, 1}.

A sequence {xn }n∈N is called a P -sequence if xn < xn+1 and

(xn , xn+1 ) ∈ P . We can observe that not all P -sequences are
either trivial or almost trivial. Indeed, it would it possible to
build P -sequences alternating trivial and almost trivial terms. We
also can obtain another class of sequences which are not strictly
increasing. For example, we can remove the condition xn < xn+1
while maintaining the condition that each two consecutive terms
form a pair in P .

An interesting property that every trivial sequence {xn }n∈N satisfies

is that, for every n ∈ N, the triplet (xn , xn+1 , xn+2 ) verifies

xn xn+2 = x2n+1 − 1. (4)

In contrast, it is evident that almost trivial sequences, which also

are P -sequences, do not satisfy (4).

We introduce a new sequence in the following definition.