Problem 12153

(American Mathematical Monthly, Vol.127, January 2020)

Proposed by O. Kouba (Syria).

For a real number x whose fractional part is not 1/2, let hxi denote the nearest integer to x. For a
positive integer n, let
n
X 1 √
an = √ − 2 n.
k=1
h ki
(a) Prove that the sequence
√ (an )n≥1 is convergent, and find its limit L.
(b) Prove that the set { n(an − L) : n ≥ 1} is a dense subset of [0, 1/4].

Solution proposed by Roberto Tauraso, Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Roma “Tor

Vergata”, via della Ricerca Scientifica, 00133 Roma, Italy.

Solution. It is easy to verify that

√ √
 
1
h ki = k+ =j for k ∈ [j(j − 1) + 1, j(j + 1)],
2
and therefore
n √ √
X 1 √ n √ √ ( n − h ni)2
an + 1 = √ − 2 n + 1 = √ + h ni − 1 − 2 n + 1 = √ .
h ki h ni h ni
k=1

√
(a) As n goes to infinity, we have that h ni → +∞ and
√ √ √
2
( n − h ni)2 { n + 12 } − 12 1/4
0 ≤ an + 1 = √ = √ ≤ √ →0
h ni h ni h ni

where {x} = x − ⌊x⌋ ∈ [0, 1), and we may conclude that an → L = −1.
(b) We have that √ √ √
√ √ n( n − h ni)2
n(an − L) = n(an + 1) = √ .
h ni
√
Let j = h ni then n ∈ [j(j − 1) + 1, j(j + 1)] and
p p p
√ j(j + 1)( j(j + 1) − j)2 1 j(j + 1)
0 ≤ n(an + 1) ≤ = · √ √ 2 < 1/4
j 4 j+1+ j
2

where at the last step we applied the AM-GM inequality.

Let α ∈ [0, 1/4]. Then there exist two
√ sequences of integers (pk )k≥1 and (qk )k≥1 with 0 ≤ pk ≤ qk
and qk → +∞ such that pk /qk → 2 α ∈ [0, 1]. Let nk = qk2 + pk then
 2
1 √
qk2 ≤ nk ≤ qk2 + qk < qk + =⇒ h nk i = qk .
2
Therefore, as n goes to infinity,

√ √ √ nk − qk2 pk √
nk − h nk i = nk − qk = √ = p 2 → α
nk + qk qk + pk + qk

and √ √ √
√ nk ( nk − h nk i)2
nk (ank + 1) = √ →α
h nk i
√
which means that the set { n(an + 1) : n ≥ 1} is a dense subset of [0, 1/4].