MC215 -- Mathematical Reasoning & Discrete Structures -- 4/22/14

Proof of the Erdös-Szekeres Theorem

Definition. A sequence ( ,  , ⋯ ,  ) is called monotone increasing if  ≤  ≤ ⋯ ≤  .

It is called monotone decreasing if  ≥  ≥ ⋯ ≥  . If ( ,  , ⋯ ,  ) is either monotone
increasing or monotone decreasing, we say that it is monotone.


Theorem. Let ≥ 0 be a nonnegative integer. Then any sequence of numbers with at least +1
elements has a monotone subsequence of length at least + 1.

Proof. Let  = ( ,  , ⋯ ,   ) be sequence of length  + 1. If  has a monotone increasing

subsequence of length + 1, we're done, so assume that the longest monotone increasing
subsequence of  has length at most . We must show then that  has a monotone decreasing
subsequence of length + 1.

For each number  in the sequence , let ( ) be the length of the longest monotone increasing
subsequence that ends with  . By our assumption above, ( ) ≤ for every number  in . It is
also important to note that if  <  and  ≤  , then ( ) < ( ), because any monotone
increasing sequence that ends at  can be made longer by adding  to its end. This implies the
statement below, which we will need in the proof:
(1) If  <  and ( ) = ( ), then  >  .
We now apply the Strong Pigeonhole Principle, letting the objects be the numbers in the sequence 
and the categories be the possible values of ( ). Then there are  + 1 objects but only
categories, since by our assumption 1 ≤ ( ) ≤ . The Strong Pigeonhole Principle says that some
 
category must contain at least  
= + 1 objects. So there is some value  and at least +1
elements of  that all have ( ) = . By the observation (1) above, if we list those + 1 elements
by their order in the sequence , ( ,  , ⋯ ,  ! ), we conclude that  >  , > ⋯ >  ! . Thus 
has a monotone decreasing subsequence of length + 1.
∎

Example from class: (#$, %&, '&, (), *+, '%, &&, &), (%, &#)
The length of this sequence is 10 = 3 + 1, so the theorem guarantees it will have a monotone
subsequence of length 3 + 1 = 4. As we assumed in the proof, this sequence does not have a length-
4 increasing subsequence, so the theorem says it must have a monotone decreasing sequence of
length 4 or more. Here are the values of the function :
.(#$) = %, .(%&) = %, .('&) = $, .(()) = $, .(*+) = +, .('%) = +, .(&&) = +, .(&)) = +, .((%) = $, .(&#) = +
The Pigeonhole Principle guarantees that one of the values of  is taken on at least 4 times, and here
that value is 3. The theorem says that if we list all the elements  that have ( ) = 3 in sequential
order, they will form a monotone decreasing subsequence of , and they do: 93, 81, 77, 75, 74.