1998 AIME Problems/Problem 8

Problem

Except for the first two terms, each term of the sequence $1000, x, 1000 - x,\ldots$ is obtained by subtracting the preceding term from the one before that. The last term of the sequence is the first negative term encounted. What positive integer $x$ produces a sequence of maximum length?

Solution

The best way to start is to just write out some terms.

0	1	2	3	4	5	6
$\quad 1000 \quad$ aa	$\quad x \quad$ aaa	$1000 - x$	$2x - 1000$ a	$2000 - 3x$	$3000 - 5x$	$8x - 5000$

By now its obvious that the numbers are related to the Fibonacci numbers.

Thus,

$n \equiv 0 \pmod{2}\quad\quad F_{n-1}\cdot 1000-F_n\cdot x$
$n \equiv 1 \pmod{2}\quad\quad F_{n}\cdot 1000-F_{n-1}\cdot x$

Solution 1

We can start to write out some of the inequalities now:

$x > 0$
$1000 - x > 0 \Longrightarrow x < 1000$
$2x - 1000 > 0 \Longrightarrow x > 500$
$3000 - 2x > 0 \Longrightarrow x < 666.\overline{6}$
$5x - 3000 > 0 \Longrightarrow x > 600$

And in general,

$n \equiv 0 \pmod{2}\quad\quad x < \frac{F_{n-1}}{F_n} \cdot 1000$
$n \equiv 1 \pmod{2}\quad\quad x > \frac{F_{n-1}}{F_{n}} \cdot 1000$

It is apparent that the bounds are slowly closing in on $x$ , so we can just calculate $x$ for some large value of $n$ (randomly, 10, 11):

$x < \frac{F_{9}}{F_{10}} \cdot 1000 = \frac{34}{55} \cdot 1000 = 618.\overline{18}$

$x > \frac{F_{10}}{F_{11}} \cdot 1000 = \frac{55}{89} \cdot 1000 \approx 617.977$

Thus the sequence is maximized when $x = 618$ .

Solution 2

It is well known that $\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} \frac{F_{n-1}}{F_n} = \phi - 1 =\frac{1 + \sqrt{5}}{2} - 1 \approx .61803$ , so $1000 \cdot \frac{F_{n-1}}{F_n}$ approaches $x = 618$ .

1998 AIME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 7	Followed by Problem 9
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1998 AIME Problems/Problem 8

Problem

Contents

Solution

Solution 1

Solution 2

See also