I'd left question 2 and thought I should come back to it...
Question 2
(a) List the values of
for
and note the pattern of the even terms in the sequence. State a theorem related to generalise this pattern and prove it
without using induction.
(b) Use induction to show that all terms of the form
are divisible by 3.
(c) Prove that
is a multiple of 12. You may use the fact that
.
Solution to 2(a)
What I intended was that
And the even terms, that is, the terms that are even, are
,
,
,
, and
. The pattern I sought was that terms of the form
, are even. This can easily proven by induction, but also by noting that the terms follow a pattern of even - odd - odd - even - odd - odd - even - odd - odd - etc. Using the recursive formula from
, and noting that
Hence:
and the pattern will continue...
Solution to 2(b)
Theorem: is divisible by 3 for all
Proof: By induction on
A Put
:
B Put
be a value of
for which the result is true,
That is, let
We must now prove the result for
.
That is, we must prove that
So, if the result is true for
, then it follows that the result is also true for
.
C It follows from
A and
B by the process of mathematical induction that the result is true for all positive integers
.
Solution to 2(c)
The theorem that
must be a multiple of 12 (for all positive integers
) can be done in exactly the same way as (b), but deriving the necessary result in part
B of the proof is long. It can be shortened by using the given result, but there is a better option still.
We have seen that
is divisible by 2 and that
is divisible by 3, and
so
must be divisible by 3 (and also by 2). Any integer
that is divisible by both
and
must be divisible by
so long as
and
are coprime. Our given result points to finding a property of
, which is that
is divisible by 4.
Theorem: is divisible by 4 for all
Proof: By induction on
A Put
:
B Put
be a value of
for which the result is true,
That is, let
We must now prove the result for
.
That is, we must prove that
So, if the result is true for
, then it follows that the result is also true for
.
C It follows from
A and
B by the process of mathematical induction that the result is true for all positive integers
.
We know that
is divisible by 3 from part (b).
We now know that
is divisible by 4 from the above induction proof.
3 and 4 are coprime, they share no common factors except for 1, and so
is divisible by
, as required.