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Titu Andreescu
Cristinel Mortici
Marian Tetiva
Mathematical
Bridges
Titu Andreescu • Cristinel Mortici • Marian Tetiva
Mathematical Bridges
Titu Andreescu Cristinel Mortici
University of Texas at Dallas Natural Valahia University of Targoviste
Sciences and Mathematics Targoviste, Romania
Richardson, Texas, USA
Marian Tetiva
Gheorghe Rosca Codreanu National College
Barlad, Romania
ISBN 978-0-8176-4394-2 ISBN 978-0-8176-4629-5 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-0-8176-4629-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017932379
Mathematics Subject Classification (2010): 00A07, 08A50, 15-XX, 26-XX, 97H60, 97I20, 97I30
© Springer Science+Business Media LLC 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
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the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
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Printed on acid-free paper
This book is published under the trade name Birkhäuser, www.birkhauser-science.com

The registered company is Springer Science+Business Media LLC
The registered company address is: 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, U.S.A.
Preface
Many breakthroughs in research and, more generally, solutions to problems come as

the result of someone making connections. These connections are sometimes quite
subtle, and at first blush, they may not appear to be plausible candidates for part
of the solution to a difficult problem. In this book, we think of these connections
as bridges. A bridge enables the possibility of a solution to a problem that may
have a very elementary statement but whose solution may involve more complicated
realms that may not be directly indicated by the problem statement. Bridges extend
and build on existing ideas and provide new knowledge and strategies for the solver.
The ideal audience for this book consists of ambitious students who are seeking
useful tools and strategies for solving difficult problems (many of olympiad caliber),
primarily in the areas of real analysis and linear algebra.
The opening chapter (aptly called “Chapter 1”) explores the metaphor of bridges
by presenting a myriad of problems that span a diverse set of mathematical
fields. In subsequent chapters, it is left to the reader to decide what constitutes
a bridge. Indeed, different people may well have different opinions of whether
something is a (useful) bridge or not. Each chapter is composed of three parts: the
theoretical discussion, proposed problems, and solutions to the proposed problems.
In each chapter, the theoretical discussion sets the stage for at least one bridge
by introducing and motivating the themes of that chapter—often with a review of
some definitions and proofs of classical results. The remainder of the theoretical
part of each chapter (and indeed the majority) is devoted to examining illustrative
examples—that is, several problems are presented, each followed by at least one
solution. It is assumed that the reader is intimately familiar with real analysis and
linear algebra, including their theoretical developments. There is also a chapter
that assumes a detailed knowledge of abstract algebra, specifically, group theory.
However, for the not so familiar with higher mathematics reader, we recommend a
few books in the bibliography that will surely help, like [5–9, 11, 12].
Bridges can be found everywhere—and not just in mathematics. One such final
bridge is from us to our friends who carefully read the manuscript and made
extremely valuable comments that helped us a lot throughout the making of the
book. It is, of course, a bridge of acknowledgments and thanks; so, last but not least,
v
vi Preface
we must say that we are deeply grateful to Gabriel Dospinescu and Chris Jewell for
all their help along the way to the final form of our work.
In closing, as you read this book, we invite you to discover some of these bridges
and embrace their power in solving challenging problems.
Richardson, TX, USA Titu Andreescu

Targoviste, Romania Cristinel Mortici
Barlad, Romania Marian Tetiva
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
1 Mathematical (and Other) Bridges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Proposed Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 Cardinality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3 Polynomial Functions Involving Determinants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4 Some Applications of the Hamilton-Cayley Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5 A Decomposition Theorem Related to the Rank of a Matrix . . . . . . . . . . 75
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
6 Equivalence Relations on Groups and Factor Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
7 Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
8 The Nested Intervals Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
vii
viii Contents
9 The Splitting Method and Double Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
10 The Number e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
11 The Intermediate Value Theorem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
12 The Extreme Value Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
13 Uniform Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
14 Derivatives and Functions’ Variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
15 Riemann and Darboux Sums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
16 Antiderivatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Chapter 1
Mathematical (and Other) Bridges
Many people who read this book will probably be familiar with the following result
(very folkloric, if we may say so).
Problem 1. The midpoints of the bases of a trapezoid, the point at which its
lateral sides meet, and the point of intersection of its diagonals are four collinear
points.
E
N
D C
A M = M B
Solution. Indeed, let ABCD be a trapezoid with AB k CD; let M and N be the
midpoints of the line segments AB and CD, respectively; and let fEg D AD \ BC
and fFg D AC \ BD. We intend to prove that M, N, E, and F are four collinear
points.
Denote by M 0 the intersection of EF with AB. By Ceva’s theorem, we have
AM 0 BC ED
D 1:
M 0 B CE DA
© Springer Science+Business Media LLC 2017 1

T. Andreescu et al., Mathematical Bridges, DOI 10.1007/978-0-8176-4629-5_1
2 1 Mathematical (and Other) Bridges
Also, Thales’ interception theorem says that
DE CE CB DE
D , D 1;
DA CB CE DA
and by putting together the above two equations, we get M 0 A D M 0 B, that is, M 0 is
actually the midpoint of AB; therefore, M D M 0 belongs to EF, which is (part of)
what we intended to prove.
The reader will definitely find a similar way (or will be able to use the already
proved fact about the collinearity of M, E, and F) to show that N, E, and F are also
collinear.
One can also prove that a converse of this theorem is valid, that is, for instance, if
M, E, and F are collinear, then AB and CD are parallel (just proceed analogously, but
going in the opposite direction). Or try to prove that if the midpoints of two opposite
sides of a trapezoid and the intersection point of its diagonals are three collinear
points, then the quadrilateral is actually a trapezoid (the sides whose midpoints we
are talking about are the parallel sides); this could be more challenging to prove.
As we said, this is a well-known theorem in elementary Euclidean geometry,
so why bother to mention it here? Well, this is because we find in it a very good
example of a problem that needs a (mathematical) bridge. Namely, you noticed that
the problem statement is very easy to understand even for a person who only has a
very humble background in geometry—but that person wouldn’t be able to solve the
problem. You could be familiar with basic notions as collinearity and parallelism,
you could know such things as properties of angles determined by two parallel lines
and a transversal, but any attempt to solve the problem with such tools will fail. One
needs much more in order to achieve such a goal, namely, one needs a new theory—
we are talking about the theory of similarity. In other words, if you want to solve
this problem, you have to raise your knowledge to new facts that are not mentioned
in its statement. You need to throw a bridge from the narrow realm where you are
stuck to a larger extent.
The following problem illustrates the same situation.
Problem 2. Determine all monotone functions f W N ! R such that
f .xy/ D f .x/ C f .y/ for all x; y 2 N
(N denotes the set of positive integers, while R denotes the reals).
Solution. All that one can get from the given relation satisfied by f is f .1/ D 0
and the obvious generalization f .x1 xk / D f .x1 / C C f .xk / for all positive
integers x1 ; : : : ; xk (an easy and canonical induction leads to this formula) with its
corollary f .xk / D kf .x/ for all positive integers x and k. But nothing else can be
done if you don’t step into a higher domain (mathematical analysis, in this case)
and if you don’t come up with an idea. The idea is possible in that superior domain,
being somehow natural if you want to use limits.
1 Mathematical (and Other) Bridges 3
Let n be a positive integer (arbitrary, but fixed for the moment), and let us
consider, for any positive integer k, the unique nonnegative integer nk such that
2nk nk < 2nk C1 . Rewriting these inequalities in the form
ln n 1 nk ln n
<
ln 2 k k ln 2
one sees immediately that lim nk =k D ln n= ln 2.

k!1
Because if f is increasing, f is decreasing and satisfies the same functional
equation (and conversely), we can assume, without loss of generality, that f is
increasing. Then from the inequalities satisfied by the numbers nk and by applying
the noticed property of f , we obtain

nk nk 1
f .2nk / f .nk / f .2nk C1 / , f .2/ f .n/ C f .2/:
k k k
Now we can let k go to infinity, yielding
ln n
f .n/ D f .2/
ln 2
for any positive integer n. So, all solutions are given by a formula of type f .n/ D
a ln n, for a fixed real constant a. If f is strictly increasing (or strictly decreasing),
we get f .2/ > f .1/ D 0 (respectively, f .2/ < f .1/ D 0); thus f .2/ ¤ 0, and,
with b D 21=f .2/ , the formula becomes f .n/ D logb n (with greater, respectively
lesser than 1 base b of the logarithm according to whether f is strictly increasing, or
strictly decreasing). The null function (f .n/ D 0 for all n) can be considered among
the solutions, if we do not ask only for strictly monotonic functions. By the way, if
we drop the monotonicity condition, we can find numerous examples of functions
that only satisfy the first condition. For instance, define f .n/ D a1 C a2 C C ak for
n D pa11 pak k , with p1 ; : : : ; pk distinct primes and a1 ; : : : ; ak positive integers and,
of course, f .1/ D 0, and we have a function with property f .mn/ D f .m/ C f .n/
for all positive integers m and n. The interested reader can verify for himself this
condition and the fact that f is not of the form f .n/ D logb n, for some positive
b ¤ 1 (or, equivalently, that this function is not monotone).
Again, one sees that in order to solve such a problem, one needs to build a bridge
between the very elementary statement of the problem and the much more involved
realm of mathematical analysis, where the problem can be solved.
However, there is more about this problem for the authors of this book. Namely,
it also demonstrates another kind of bridge—a bridge over the troubled water of
time, a bridge connecting moments of our lives. As youngsters are preoccupied
by mathematics, we had (behind the Iron Curtain, during the Cold War) very
few sources of information and very few periodicals to work with. There were,
say, in the 80s of the former century, Gazeta Matematică and Revista matematică
din Timişoara—only two mathematical magazines. The first one was a monthly
magazine founded long ago, in 1895, by a few enthusiastic mathematicians and

engineers among which Gheorghe Ţiţeica is most widely known. The second
magazine used to appear twice a year and was much younger than its sister, but also
had a national spreading due again to some enthusiastic editors. Anyway, this is all
we had, and with some effort, we could also get access to Russian magazines such
as Kvant or Matematika v Şkole, or the Bulgarian Matematika. Two of the authors of
this book were at the time acquainted with problem 2 through Revista Matematică
din Timişoara. They were high school students at that time and thoroughly followed
up the problem column of this magazine, especially a “selected problems” column
where they first met this problem (and couldn’t solve it). The third author was the
editor of that column—guess who is who! Anyway, for all three of us, a large
amount of the problems in this book represent as many (nostalgic) bridges between
past and present. Problem 2 is one of them, and we have many more, from which a
few examples are presented below.
Problem 3. Are there continuous functions f W R ! R such that
f .f .x// C f .x/ C x D 0 for every real x‹
Solution. No, there is no such function. The first observation is that if a function
with the stated properties existed, then it would be strictly monotone. This is because
such a function must be injective (the reader will immediately check that f .x1 / D
f .x2 / implies f .f .x1 // D f .f .x2 //; therefore, by the given equation, x1 D x2 ). Now,
injectivity and continuity together imply strict monotonicity; so if such a function
existed, it would be either strictly increasing or strictly decreasing.
However, if f is strictly increasing, then f ı f and f ı f C f C 1R are also strictly
increasing, which is impossible, because f ı f C f C 1R must equal the identically 0
function (by 1R we mean the identity function of the reals defined by 1R .x/ D x for
every real x). On the other hand, by replacing x with f .x/ in the given equation, we
get f .f .f .x/// C f .f .x// C f .x/ D 0 for all x, and subtracting the original equation
from this one yields f .f .f .x/// D x for all x or f ı f ı f D 1R . This equality is a
contradiction when f (and f ı f ı f also) is strictly decreasing and the solution ends
here.
By the way, note that if an , an1 , . . . , a0 are real numbers such that the equation
an xn C an1 xn1 C C a0 D 0 has no real solutions, then there exists no continuous
function f W R ! R such that an f Œn C an1 f Œn1 C C a0 f Œ0 D 0. Here f Œn is
the nth iterate of f (with f Œ0 D 1R ), and 0 represents the identically 0 function. This
was a (pretty challenging at the time) problem that we had on a test in the mentioned
above eighties, on a preparation camp. A bridge, isn’t it?
Problem 4. Prove that among any 79 consecutive positive integers, there exists
at least one such that the sum of its digits is divisible by 13. Find the smallest 78
consecutive positive integers such that none of them has its sum of digits divisible
by 13.
Solution. By S.N/ we will denote the sum of digits of the natural number N. We
can always find among 79 consecutive natural numbers 40 of the form 100k C a0,
100k C a1; : : :, 100k C .a C 3/9, with k a natural number and a 6 a digit. Among
the sums of digits of these numbers, there are S.k/Ca, S.k/CaC1; : : :, S.k/CaC12,
that is, there are 13 consecutive natural numbers, one of which has to be divisible
by 13.
Now, for the second part, we have to choose the desired numbers in such a
way that no forty of them starting with a multiple of 10 are in a segment of
natural numbers of the form f100k; 100k C 1; : : : ; 100k C 99g. This can only
happen if the numbers are of the form 100a 39; 100a 38; : : : ; 100a C 38,
for some natural number a. Actually we will consider numbers of the form
10b 39; 10b 38; : : : ; 10b C 38, with b 2, because it will be important how
many nines there are before the last two digits. The sums of digits of the numbers
10b ; 10b C 1; : : : ; 10b C 38 will cover all possibilities from 1 to 12. The sums of
digits of the numbers 10b 39; 10b 38; : : : ; 10b 1 will range from 9.b 2/ C 7 to
9.b2/C18, and it is necessary that they cover exactly the same remainders modulo
13 (from 1 to 12). For this to happen, we need to have 9.b 2/ C 7 1 .mod 13/,
which gives b 10 .mod 13/. So, the smallest possible 78 such numbers are
those obtained for b D 10, thus the (78 consecutive) numbers from 9999999961
to 10000000038.
This is a problem that we know from the good old RMT.
Problem 5 (Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv theorem). Prove that among any 2n 1
integers, one can find n with their sum divisible by n.
Solution. This is an important theorem, and it opened many new approaches in
combinatorics, number theory, and group theory (and other branches of mathemat-
ics) in the middle of the twentieth century (it has been proven in 1961). However,
we first met it in Kvant, with no name attached, and it was also Kvant that informed
us about the original proof. Seemingly the problem looks like that (very known)
one which states that from any n integers, one can choose a few with their sum
divisible by n. The solution goes like this. If the numbers are a1 ; : : : ; an , consider
the n numbers a1 , a1 Ca2 ,. . . , a1 Ca2 C Can . If there is any of them divisible with
n, the solution ends; otherwise, they are n numbers leaving, when divided by n, only
n1 possible remainders (the nonzero ones); therefore, by the pigeonhole principle,
there are two of them, say a1 C C ai and a1 C C aj , with, say, i < j that are
congruent modulo n. Then their difference aiC1 C C aj is, of course, divisible by
n (and is a sum of a few of the initial numbers). We put here this solution (otherwise,
we are sure that it is well-known by our readers) only to see that there is no way to
use its idea for solving problem 5 (which is a much deeper theorem). Indeed, the
above solution allows no control on the number of elements in the sum that results
to be divisible by n; hence, it is of no use for problem 5. The proof that we present
now (actually the original proof of the three mathematicians) is very ingenious and,
of course, builds a bridge.
The first useful observation is that the property from the theorem is multiplica-
tive, that is, if we name it P.n/, we can prove that P.a/ and P.b/ together imply
P.ab/. This permits an important reduction of the problem to the case of prime n
(and it is used in all the proofs that we know). We leave this as an (easy and nice)
exercise for the reader. So, further, we only want to prove (and it suffices, too) that
from any 2p 1 integers one can always choose p with their sum divisible by p,
where p is a positive prime.
The bridge we throw is towards the following:
Theorem. Let A and B be subsets of Zp , with p prime, and let
A C B D fa C b j a 2 A; b 2 Bg:
Then we have jA C Bj minfp; jAj C jBj 1g. (By jXj, we mean the number of
elements of the set X.)
We skip the proof of this (important) theorem named after Cauchy and Davenport
(the second rediscovered it a century after the first one; each of them needed it in
his research on other great mathematical results), but we insist on the following:
Corollary. Let A1 ; : : : ; As be 2-element subsets of Zp . Then
jA1 C C As j minfp; s C 1g:
In particular, if A1 ; : : : ; Ap1 are subsets with two elements of Zp , then
A1 C C Ap1 D Zp I
that is, every element from Zp can be realized as a sum of elements from
A1 ; : : : ; Ap1 (one in each set).
This corollary is all one needs to prove Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv’s theorem, and it can
be demonstrated by a simple induction over s. The base case s D 1 being evident,
let’s assume that the result holds for s two-element subsets of Zp and prove it for
s C 1 such subsets A1 ,. . . ,AsC1 . If s C 1 p, we have nothing to prove; hence,
we may assume that the opposite inequality holds. In this case, by the induction
hypothesis, there are at least s C 1 distinct elements x1 ; : : : ; xsC1 in A1 C C As .
Let AsC1 D fy; zg; then the set A1 C CAs CAsC1 surely contains x1 Cy; : : : ; xsC1 Cy
and x1 Cz; : : : ; xsC1 Cz. But the sets fx1 Cy; : : : ; xsC1 Cyg and fx1 Cz; : : : ; xsC1 Czg
cannot be equal, because in that case, we would have
.x1 C y/ C C .xsC1 C y/ D .x1 C z/ C C .xsC1 C z/;
which means .s C 1/y D .s C 1/z. As 1 s C 1 p 1, this implies y D z

in Zp , which is impossible (because y and z are the two distinct elements of AsC1 ).
Consequently, among the elements x1 C y; : : : ; xsC1 C y and x1 C z; : : : ; xsC1 C z
of A1 C C AsC1 , there are at least s C 2 mutually distinct elements, finishing the
proof.
Now for the proof of Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv theorem, consider a1 a2 : : :

a2p1 to be the remainders of the given 2p 1 integers when divided by p, in
increasing order. If, for example, a1 D ap , then a1 D a2 D : : : D ap , and the
sum of the p numbers that leave the remainders a1 ; : : : ; ap is certainly divisible
by p; similarly, the problem is solved when any equality aj D ajCp1 holds (for
any 1 j p). Thus we can assume further that (for every 1 j p) aj and
ajCp1 are distinct. Now we can consider the two-element subsets of Zp defined by
Aj D faj ; ajCp1 g, 1 j p 1. (We do not use a special notation for the residue
class modulo p of the number x, which is also denoted by x.)
According to the above corollary of the Cauchy-Davenport theorem, A1 C C
Ap1 has at least p elements; therefore, it covers all Zp . Consequently, there exist
i1 ; : : : ; ip1 such that ij is either j or j C p 1 for any j 2 f1; : : : ; p 1g and
ai1 C C aip1 D a2p1 in Zp . This means that the sum ai1 C C aip1 C a2p1
(where, clearly, all indices are different) is divisible by p, that is, the sum of the
corresponding initial numbers is divisible by p, finishing the proof.
One can observe that the same argument applies to prove the stronger assertion
that among any 2p 1 given integers, there exist p with their sum giving any
remainder we want when divided by p. Also, note that the numbers 0; : : : ; 0; 1; : : : ; 1
(n 1 zeros and n 1 ones) are 2n 2 integers among which one cannot find any
n with their sum divisible by n (this time n needs not be a prime). Thus, the number
2n 1 from the statement of the theorem is minimal with respect to n and the stated
property.
There are now many proofs of this celebrated theorem, each and every one
bringing its amount of beauty and cleverness. For instance, one of them uses the
congruence
X
.xi1 C C xip /p1 0 .mod p/
1i1 <<ip 2p1
(the sum is over all possible choices of a subset of p elements of the set
f1; : : : ; 2p 1g; in other words, it contains all sums of p numbers among the 2p 1
given integers, which we denoted by x1 ; : : : ; x2p1 ). Knowing this congruence and
Fermat’s Theorem, one gets N 0 .mod p/, where N means the number of those
sums of p of the given 2p 1 integers that are not divisible by p. However, ! if all
2p 1
the possible sums weren’t divisible by p, we would have N D 1
p1
.mod p/, a contradiction—hence there must exist at least one sum of p numbers that
is divisible by p.
This proof is somehow simpler than the previous one, but it relies on the above
congruence, which, in turn, can be obtained from the general identity
!k
X X
.1/ mjSj
xi D 0;
Sf1;:::;mg i2S
valid for all elements x1 ; : : : ; xm of a commutative ring and for any 1 k m 1.

For k D m, we need to replace the 0 from the right hand side with mŠx1 : : : xm ,
and one can find results for the corresponding sum obtained by letting k D m C 1,
k D m C 2, and so on, but this is not interesting for us here. Let us only remark
how another bridge (a connection between this identity and the Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv
theorem) appeared, seemingly out of the blue. The reader can prove the identity for
himself (or herself) and use it then for every group of p of the given 2p 1 integers,
with exponent p 1, and then add all the yielded equalities; then try to figure out
(it is not hard at all) how these manipulations lead to the desired congruence and,
finally, to the second (very compact) proof of the Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv’s theorem.
However, we needed a bridge. What this book tries to say is that there are bridges
everywhere (in mathematics and in the real life). At least nostalgic bridges, if none
other are evident.
Let us see now a few more problems whose solutions we’ll provide after the
reader has already tried (a bit or more) to solve independently. As the whole book,
the collection is eclectic and very subjective—and it is based on the good old
sources from our youth, such as Gazeta Matematică (GM), Revista matematică din
Timişoara (RMT), Kvant, the Romanian olympiad or TSTs, and so on. Most of the
problems are folklore (and their solutions, too), but they first came to us from these
sources. When the problems have proposers we mention them; otherwise, as they
can be found in many books and magazines, we avoid any references—every reader,
we are sure, knows where to find them.
Proposed Problems
1. (Mihai Bălună, RMT) Find all positive integers n such that any permutation of
the digits of n (in base ten) produces a perfect square.
2. Let a1 ; : : : ; an be real numbers situated on a circumference and having zero
sum. Prove that there exists an index i such that the n sums ai , ai C aiC1 , . . . ,
ai C aiC1 C C aiCn1 are all nonnegative. Here, all indices are considered
modulo n.
3. Prove that there exist integers a, b, andpc, not p
all zero and with absolute values
less than one million, such that ja C b 2 C c 3j < 1011 .
4. Prove that, for any positive integer k, there exist k consecutive natural numbers
such that each of them is not square-free.
5. Find the largest possible side of an equilateral triangle with vertices within a
unit square. (The vertices can be inside the square or on its boundary.)
6. Let A and B be square matrices of the same order such that AB BA D A. Prove
that Am B BAm D mAm for all m 2 N and that A is nilpotent.
7. (Dorel Miheţ, RMT) Prove that from the set f1k ; 2k ; 3k ; : : :g of the powers
with exponent k 2 N of the positive integers, one cannot extract an infinite
arithmetic progression.
Solutions 9
8. Let 1; 4; 8; 9; 16; 27; 32; : : : be the sequence of the powers of natural numbers
with exponent at least 2. Prove that there are arbitrarily long (nonconstant)
arithmetic progressions with terms from this sequence, but one cannot find such
a progression that is infinite.
9. (Vasile Postolică, RMT) Let .an /n1 be a convergent increasing sequence. Prove
that the sequence with general term
.anC1 an /.anC1 an1 / : : : .anC1 a1 /
is convergent, and find its limit.

What can we say if we only know that .an /n1 is increasing?
10. Let f be a continuous real function defined on Œ0; 1/ such that lim f .nt/ D 0
n!1
for every t in a given open interval .p; q/ (0 < p < q). Prove that lim f .x/ D 0.
x!1
11. (Mihai Onucu Drimbe, GM) Find all continuous functions f W R ! R such that
f .x C y C z/ C f .x/ C f .y/ C f .z/ D f .x C y/ C f .x C z/ C f .y C z/
for all x; y; z 2 R.
12. (Dorel Miheţ, RMT) Let f W Œa; b ! Œa; b (where a < b are real numbers) be a
differentiable function for which f .a/ D b and f .b/ D a. Prove that there exist
c1 ; c2 2 .a; b/ such that f 0 .c1 /f 0 .c2 / D 1.
13. Evaluate
Z =2
1
p dx:
0 1 C .tan x/ 2
14. Show that

Z
b
x n x
lim 1C e dx D b a
n!1 a n
for all real numbers a and b.
Solutions
1. Only the one-digit squares (that is, 1, 4, and 9) have (evidently) this property.
Suppose a number with at least two digits has the property. It is well known
that a number with at least two digits and for which all digits are equal cannot
be a square; therefore, there must be at least two distinct digits, say a and b,
with a < b. Then if : : : ab D k2 and : : : ba D l2 , we clearly have k < l, hence
l k C 1, and
2k C 1 D .k C 1/2 k2 l2 k2 D 9.b a/ 81:

So k 40 and a direct (boring, but simple) inspection show that no perfect

square (with at least two digits) until 402 D 1600 has the required property.
2. Solution I. Among all sums of the form aj C ajC1 C C ajCk1 (for different
integers j 2 f1; : : : ; ng and k 1), there must be a minimal one. Because
any cyclic permutation of the numbers affects neither the hypothesis nor the
conclusion of the problem, we can assume that this minimal sum is a1 C C
ai1 . We claim that in this case, ai C aiC1 C C aiCk1 0 for all k. Indeed,
as long as i C k 1 n, this means that a1 C C aiCk1 a1 C C ai1 .
When i C k 1 exceeds n, we use the hypothesis a1 C C an D 0 to see that
ai CaiC1 C CaiCk1 0 is equivalent to anC1 C CaiCk1 a1 C Cai1 .
Solution II. We proceed by contradiction and suppose that for every i 2
f1; : : : ; ng, there exists some j 1 such that ai C C aiCj1 < 0. So we find a
sequence 0 D i0 < i1 < < in with property As D ais C1 C C aisC1 < 0 for
all s 2 f0; 1; : : : ; ng. By the pigeonhole principle, there are j and k, with j < k,
such that ij ik .mod n/, and in that case, Aj C C Ak1 < 0 represents a
contradiction, because Aj C C Ak1 is a multiple of a1 C C an ; therefore
it is, in fact, 0.
p p
3. There exist 1018 numbers of the form x C y 2 C z 3, with x, y, and z integers
from the set f0; 1: : : : ; 106 1g. Any two such numbers are distinct (we discuss p
this
p a little bit6 later), and any such number is6 at most equal to .106 1/.1C 2C
3/ < 5 10 . Divide the interval Œ0; 5 10 / into 1018 1 disjoint subintervals
with equal lengths 5106 =.1018 1/, and observe that there must be two numbers
in the same interval; thus, there exist two of these numbers having the absolute
6 18
value ofptheir difference
p p5 10 =.10
less than p 1/ < 1011 p. If thepnumbers are
x1 C y1 2 C z1 3 and x2 C y2 2 C z2 3, we get ja C b 2 C c 3j < 1011
for a D x1 x2 , b D y1 y2 , and c D z1 z2 , which are integers (at least one
of them being nonzero) with absolute values less than one million.
There are two more issues about this problem that we want (and have) to
discuss. One of them is necessary to complete p the pproof, namely, we still need to
show that two numbers of the form x C y 2 C z 3 can only be equal whenever
thepcorresponding
p coefficients
p x, y, pand z are equal. More specifically, if x1 C
y1 2 C z1 3 D x2 C y2 2 C z2 3, and x1 ; y1 ; z1 ; x2 ; yp 2 ; z2 arepintegers, then
x1 D x2 , y1 D y2 , and z1 D z2 . Equivalently, if x C y 2 C z 3 D 0, with
integers x, y, and z, then x D y D z D 0. (We need this fact at thepbeginning p
of the above proof, when we number the numbers of the form x C y 2 C z 3,
with 0 x; y; z 1018 1: they have to be mutually distinct when they differ
by at least a component. We also need it in the last step of the proof, in order to
show that at least one of the obtained a, b, and c is nonzero.)
Actually, one can prove a more p generalp statement,
p namely, that if x; y; z; t;
are rational numbers and p x C y 2 C z 3 C t 6 D 0, then x D y D z D t D 0.
Indeed, we have z C t 2 D 0 if and only if z D t D 0p(this is well-known
and actually
p p of 2). So, if we have
is another way to state the irrationality
z C t 2 D 0, the original equation yields x C y 2 D 0, too, and the desired
conclusion easily follows. Otherwise, we can rearrange the equation as
Solutions 11
p
p xCy 2 p
3D p D u C v 2;
zCt 2
p
where u and v are rational numbers. Butpthis implies 3 D u2 C 2v 2 C 2uv 2,
hence, by invoking the irrationality of 2 again, we get 2uv D 0 and u2 C
2v 2 D 3, which, as the reader can check, immediately leads to contradiction. p
Actually
p a much more general statement is valid, namely, that a1 n b1 C
C am n bm D 0, with a1 ; : : : ; am ; b1 ; : : : ; bm 2 Q (b1 ; : : : ; bm being nonzero)
implies a1 D D am D 0 whenever there do not exist i ¤ j among the
numbers 1; : : : ; m such that bi =bj is an nth power of a rational number. It is
the so-called linear independence of radicals, a rather folkloric result. When
m D 2, one can give a similar proof to the one above; the reader can try to see
that, after a few reductions, it is enough to prove the following: if p1 ; : : : ; pN
are positive primes and aI are rational numbers indexed after the subsets I of
f1; : : : ; Ng such that
0 12
X sY
@ aI pi A 2 Q;
If1;:::;Ng i2I
then (at least) 2N 1 of the coefficients aI are null. (The product corresponding
to the empty set is 1.) We arrived pretty far away from the initial point, didn’t
we?
The second issue doesn’t belong to this proof—it is more like a reminder.
What we want to say is that this proof looks very similar to the proof of
Dirichlet’s approximation theorem. This theorem says that, given the real
numbers a1 ; : : : ; ak and given > 0, there exist integers n and m1 ; : : : ; mk
such that jnai mi j < for all 1 i k. Indeed, let us consider some positive
integer N satisfying N > 1= and look at the intervals

1 1 2 N1
I1 D 0; ; I2 D ; ; : : : ; IN D ;1
N N N N
.j/ .j/
that are partitioning Œ0; 1/. Consider also the k-tuples .b1 ; : : : ; bk / defined by
.j/ .j/
bi D s if and only if fjai g 2 Is for 1 i k and 1 j N k C 1. Each bi can
only take the N values from the set f1; : : : ; Ng; hence, the N k C 1 k-tuples can
have at most N k values. By the pigeonhole principle, there are two of them, say
.j/ .j/ .l/ .l/
.b1 ; : : : ; bk / and .b1 ; : : : ; bk / that are identical. This means that fjai g and
flai g belong to the same interval Is (with s depending on i) for each and every i
from 1 to k, further yielding
1
jfjai g flai gj < <
N
for all 1 i k, or
j.j l/ai .Œjai Œlai /j <
for all i. It is thus enough to choose n D jl and mi D Œjai Œlai for 1 i k.
It is more likely that problem 3 (and many similar ones) was created
following the idea of Dirichlet’s approximation theorem, but for us, the order
was reversed: we first met the problem and only later found out about Dirichlet’s
theorem. A bridge can be crossed in both directions.
4. This is a very easy problem for someone who knows the Chinese remainder
theorem. Namely, one can pick some k distinct primes, say p1 ,. . . ,pk , then, by
the mentioned result, one can conclude that there exists a positive integer x that
solves the system of congruences x j .mod p2j /, 1 j k; the numbers
x C 1,. . . , x C k are not square-free and the problem is solved. One can prove
in the same way that there exist k consecutive positive integers that are not mth
power-free (each of which is divisible by a power of a prime with exponent
at least m), or one can prove that there exist k consecutive positive integers
each of which is not representable as the sum of two squares (this one is a bit
more elaborate, but the reader will find her/his way in order to solve it; the only
necessary result is the one stating that a positive integer cannot be represented
as the sum of two squares whenever there is a prime congruent to 3 modulo 4
such that its exponent in the factorization of that integer is odd).
The original proof (from RMT, many years ago) makes no use of Chinese
remainder theorem, but rather of a rudiment of it. Namely, we will only use the
fact that if a and b are relatively prime, then the congruence ax c .mod b/
has solutions (or, we can say, ax generates a complete system of residues
modulo b whenever x does the same). Although a bit more complicated, we
consider this proof to be instructive; hence, we present it here.
We proceed by induction. The base case is clear, so we assume that we
dispose of k consecutive natural numbers n C 1; : : : ; n C k, each of which is
not square-free, and let p2j be some prime square that divides the jth number,
for 1 j k. Let also pkC1 be a new prime, different from all pj , 1 j k.
Then all numbers xp21 p2k C n C j, 1 j k, are not square-free, for every
integer x, and we can choose x in such a way that xp21 p2k C n k 1
.mod p2kC1 /. One sees that xp21 p2k C n C j, 1 j k C 1, are k C 1 non-
square-free numbers, as we intended to show.
Can this argument be adapted to obtain a proof of the Chinese remainder
theorem? You probably already noted that the answer is definitely yes. Do we
have another bridge?
p pYes, we do.
5. The answer is 6 2. Let l be the length of the side of an arbitrary equilateral
triangle ABC whose vertices are within the closed surface bounded by a unit
square. There is always a vertex of the triangle such that the triangle is situated
in the right angle determined by the parallels through that vertex to a pair
Solutions 13
of perpendicular sides of the square. Say A is this vertex, and note that the
projections of the sides AB and AC of the triangle on two sides sharing a
common vertex of the square have lengths l cos ˛ and l cos.=6 ˛/, where
˛ is the angle that one of them forms with the side on which it is projected.
Also, 0 ˛ =6. The projections being included in the corresponding unit
sides of the initial square, we obtain

l cos ˛ 1 and l cos ˛ 1:
6
π
6
-α
cos ( π
6
- α)
B
α
A
cos α
However, onep of ˛ p and =6 ˛ is at most =12, thus either p cos p˛

cos.=12/ D . 6 C 2/=4, or cos.=6 ˛/ cos.=12/ D . 6 C 2/=4.
In both cases, by using one of the above inequalities, we conclude that
p p
6C 2 p p
l1,l 6 2:
4
The existence of an equilateral triangle inscribed in the unit square with
precisely this length of its side is easy to prove. The triangle has a vertex in
a vertex of the square, the other two vertices on two sides of the square, and its
sides emerging from that vertex form angles of measure =12 with the sides of
the square.
π /12
B
π /12
A
By the way, one can state the similar problem in which only the word
“square” is replaced by “cube.” If ABCDA0 B0 C0 D0 is a unit cube (with two
opposite faces ABCD and A0 B0 C0 D0 and AA0 , BB0 , CC0 , DD0 parallel edges),
one can immediately see that triangle ACD0 (for instance) is equilateral with
p
2 as length of its side; also, one can readily conclude that there is no bigger
equilateral triangle inscribed in a unit cube. As intuitive as this result might be
(more intuitive than the planar case, isn’t it?), one needs a demonstration for it.
The reader is invited to see that if S is the area of a triangle and S1 , S2 , and S3 are
the areas of the projections of the triangle on the faces of a rectangular trihedron
(that is, on three planes perpendicular to each other), then S2 D S12 C S22 C S32
(an extension of the Pythagorean theorem, yet some kind of a bridge). In our
case, if S is the area of an equilateral triangle situated within a unit a cube and
we project the triangle on the planes of three faces of the cube that share a
common vertex, we have S2 D S12 C S22 C S32 (S1 , S2 , and S3 being the areas of
the projections), and, moreover, each Sk 1=2 (as being the area of a triangle
within a unit square). Thus, we obtain S2 3=4, p and, consequently, the length
of the side of the equilateral triangle is at most 2, finishing the proof. Isn’t
this a mathematical bridge (from plane to solid geometry)?
6. We prove the first part by induction on m. For m D 1, the equality is the given
one; thus, let us suppose that it is true for m and prove it for m C 1. To do this,
it suffices to multiply to the right with Am the relation AB BA D A and to
multiply to the left with A the induction hypothesis Am B BAm D mAm , and
then add side by side the two equalities thus obtained.
The second part relies on the first. From the well-known fact that XY YX
always has zero trace (for X and Y square matrices of the same dimension) and
mAm D Am BBAm , we conclude that the trace of Am is 0 for all positive integers
m. If a1 ; : : : ; an are the eigenvalues of A, this means that am
1 C Can D 0 for all
m
Solutions 15
m, and a canonical application of Newton’s formulae shows that the symmetric

sums of a1 ; : : : ; an are all 0, therefore that a1 D : : : D an D 0. Now an n n
matrix with null eigenvalues has characteristic polynomial X n ; therefore, by the
Hamilton-Cayley theorem, An D On , that is, A is nilpotent.
We can also give an alternative proof of the fact that A is nilpotent, using the
equality Am B BAm D mAm . Namely, if one defines the norm kXk of a matrix
X D .xij /1i;jn by
kXk D max jxij j

1i;jn
(with jxj being the usual norm of the complex number x), then one immediately
sees that kX C Yk kXk C kYk, k˛Xk D j˛kjXk, and kXYk nkXkkYk for
any n n complex matrices X and Y and any complex number ˛. Thus we have
mkAm k D kAm B BAm k kAm Bk C kBAm k 2nkAm kkBk
for every positive integer m. By choosing a large enough m, we see that this
implies kAm k D 0 for that m, therefore Am D On , finishing this variant of
the proof. (Of course, An D On can be also deduced if one only knows that
Am D On for some m, even though the original problem didn’t actually ask for
that.)
A third approach for solving this problem is presented in Chapter 3.
7. If a < b < c are positive and ak C ck D 2bk , then, by Jensen’s inequality for
the convex function x 7! xk , we have
k
ak C ck aCc aCc
b D
k
> )b> ;
2 2 2
hence b a > c b. (Jensen’s inequality can be avoided; we can write
ck bk D bk ak
in the form
.c b/.ck1 C ck2 b C C bk1 / D .b a/.bk1 C bk2 a C C ak1 /;
then use a < b < c.)

Suppose now that nk1 < nk2 < is an infinite arithmetic progression with
terms from the sequence of powers with exponent k. According to the above
observation, we obtain n2 n1 > n3 n2 > , which would be an infinite
strictly decreasing sequence of positive integers—an impossibility.
There is a second approach (that will be useful for the next problem—which
we cannot solve by other means). Namely, if nk1 ; nk2 ; : : : is an infinite arithmetic
progression, then there are a and b such that nkj D aj C b for all j 1. Then
1
X X 1 1 X 1 1
1
D < <1
jD1
aj C b nk
jD1 j nD1
nk
because the k-series (with k > 1) converges. On the other hand, the generalized
X 1
1
harmonic series diverges to 1, as it is again well-known (and
jD1
aj C b
one gets easily, by comparing with the harmonic series). Thus, we have a
contradiction and the problem is solved.
8. We can start with 12 ; 52 ; 72 as such a three-term progression. Or, if we want
to avoid the term 1, we can choose 282 ; 422 ; 143 —a progression with common
difference 5 142 D 980. If we have the arithmetic progression nk11 ; : : : ; nks s with
common difference d, then, for k D Œk1 ; : : : ; ks (the least common multiple of
k1 ; : : : ; ks ) and n D nks s C d, the numbers
nk nk11 ; : : : ; nk nks s ; nkC1
are s C 1 powers with exponent at least 2 forming an arithmetic progression

with common difference nk d. Thus, inductively, we get such progressions with
as many terms as we want.
However, an infinite such progression does not exist, due to the same reason
that we used in the second solution of the previous problem. Indeed, if we had
k
nj j D aj C b for all j 1, then, on one hand, we would have
X 1 X 1
D D 1;
kj
j1 nj j1
aj C b
and, on the other hand,

X 1 XX 1 X 1
<1C D1C D 2:
kj
j1 nj n2 k2
nk
n2
n.n 1/
9. We have
n
a1 C C an
0 < .anC1 an /.anC1 an1 / .anC1 a1 / anC1
n
and the conclusion
lim .anC1 an /.anC1 an1 / .anC1 a1 / D 0

n!1
follows by the squeeze principle. In order to infer this, one has to know (apart
from the arithmetic mean-geometric mean inequality) that if lim an D a, then
n!1
Solutions 17
lim .a1 C C an /=n D a, too (an immediate consequence of the Stolz-Cesàro

n!1
theorem) and, of course, to know that 01 D 0 (that is, to know that if lim xn D
n!1
0 and lim yn D 1, then lim xnyn D 0).
n!1 n!1
If .an /n1 is only increasing it can also have limit infinity. For an D n, we
obtain
bn D .anC1 an /.anC1 an1 / .anC1 a1 / D nŠ;
which has the limit 1. For an D n=2 for even n and an D .n C 1/=2 for odd n,
.bn /n1 is divergent, having a subsequence with limit 0, and another with limit
1 1
1. Finally, for an D 1 C C C (the harmonic series), we have
2 n

1 1 1 1 1
0 < bn D C C C
nC1 nC1 n nC1 2
1 2 n 1
< D ;
nC1 n 2 nC1
hence lim bn D 0. So, anything can happen if we drop the convergence

n!1
condition for the initial sequence. (This part was not in the original problem.
But, when you deal with mathematics for so long, you learn to ask—and this
is not bad at all. In this case, we found the last limit, which we did not meet
before.)
10. This statement is sometimes called Croft’s lemma. We prove it by contradiction,
namely, if we assume that f does not have limit 0 at infinity, there exist a positive
number and a sequence .xn / of real numbers, with limit infinity such that
jf .xn /j > for all n. Because f is continuous, one can find intervals In such that
xn 2 In and jf .x/j > for all x 2 In and all n. Clearly, the intervals In can be
chosen as small as we want, and in particular, we can assume that their lengths
are all smaller than a fixed positive number ˛. Further, we use the following:
Lemma. Let 0 < c < d and let ˛ > 0 be given. Then, for every sufficiently
large a > 0, any interval .a; b/ of length b a < ˛ can be covered by a
“multiple” of .c; d/. (A “multiple” of .c; d/ is n.c; d/ D fnx j x 2 .c; d/g.)
Proof of the lemma. Indeed, let us choose a > c.dC˛/=.dc/ and b < aC˛.
Then
a a ˛
>1C
c d d
is a rephrasing of the inequality satisfied by a; therefore, we have
a b a aC˛
> > 1;
c d c d
yielding the existence of an integer n between b=d and a=c; because b=d < n <
a=c, we have nc < a < b < nd; hence .a; b/ n.c; d/.
Now back to our problem. Denote In D .an ; bn /, where, of course, lim an D
n!1
lim bn D 1. Start with an interval J1 D Œc1 ; d1 .p; q/ (with c1 < d1 ) and
n!1
positive integers m1 and n1 (that exist according to the lemma) such that n1 J1
includes Im1 . Then find a closed interval J2 D Œc2 ; d2 (with c2 < d2 ) such that
n1 J2 is a subset of Im1 . This is possible: all we have to do is to choose c2 and d2
in such a way that
am1 bm
< c2 < d2 < 1 , am1 < n1 c2 < n1 d2 < bm1 :
n1 n1
Note that, since Im1 n1 J1 means
n1 c1 < am1 < bm1 < n1 d1 ;
c1 < c2 < d2 < d1 and, consequently, J2 J1 follows. Then (again, by the

lemma) we can find m2 and n2 such that n2 J2 includes Im2 , and we can pick n2
and m2 as large as we want; hence, we choose m2 > m1 and n2 > n1 . Then we
define a nondegenerate compact interval J3 D Œc3 ; d3 such that n2 J3 Im2
n2 J2 ; we conclude that J3 J2 .
In general, we can define two increasing sequences of positive integers .mk /
and .nk / and a sequence of compact nested intervals .Jk / satisfying
nk JkC1 Imk nk Jk
for all k. Now, the nested intervals Jk must have (at least) a common point t0
that belongs to .p; q/, also, because J1 was chosen inside .p; q/. Since nk t0 2
nk JkC1 Imk , we conclude that jf .nk t0 /j > for all k, which is a contradiction
to the hypothesis that lim f .nt0 / D 0—and finishes our proof.
n!1
11. Solution I. The solutions are second degree polynomial functions of the form
f .x/ D Ax2 C Bx (taking 0 value for x D 0). For x D mt, y D t, z D t, with
m 2 Z and t 2 R, we get the recurrence relation
f ..m C 2/t/ 2f ..m C 1/t/ C f .mt/ D f .2t/ 2f .t/
satisfied by the sequence .f .mt//, for every real t. Solving this linear recurrence,
we obtain
f .2t/ 2f .t/ 2 4f .t/ f .2t/

f .mt/ D m C m
2 2
for all reals t and all integers m. In particular, f .m/ D Am2 C Bm holds for all
m 2 Z, with
Solutions 19
f .2/ 2f .1/ 4f .1/ f .2/

AD and B D :
2 2
Next we have, for a nonzero integer n,

1 f .2=n/ 2f .1=n/ 2 4f .1=n/ f .2=n/
f .1/ D f n D n C n
n 2 2
and

1 f .2=n/ 2f .1=n/ 4f .1=n/ f .2=n/
f .2/ D f 2n D .2n/2 C .2n/I
n 2 2
some tedious algebra shows that solving for f .1=n/ and f .2=n/ yields
2 2
1 1 1 2 2 2
f DA CB and f DA CB ;
n n n n n n
with, of course, the same A and B as before. Now replacing these in the above
relation for f .mt/, with t D 1=n, gives
m m 2 m
f DA CB
n n n
for all integers m and n ¤ 0. Or we can say that f .r/ D Ar2 C Br for every
rational number r. For finalizing, there is now a standard procedure (based on
the continuity of f ). For an arbitrary real x, there exists a sequence .rn /n1
of rational numbers such that lim rn D x. As we have f .rn / D Arn2 C Brn
n!1
for all n and f is continuous, we can pass to the limit for n ! 1 and get
f .x/ D lim f .rn / D lim .Arn2 C Brn / D Ax2 C Bx.
n!1 n!1
Solution II. Let, for any real x and y, fx .y/ D f .x C y/ f .x/ f .y/; of course,
fx .y/ D fy .x/ for all x and y. We see that the functional equation can be written
in the form fy .x C z/ D fy .x/ C fy .z/, for all x; y; z 2 R. Because fy is continuous
and satisfies Cauchy’s functional equation, it must be of the form fy .x/ D ky x
for all x, with a fixed real constant ky . Of course, the constant depends on y, and
we rather prefer to use the functional notation ky D g.y/. Thus fy .x/ D g.y/x
for all x; y 2 R. From the initial equation, we get (for x D y D z D 0) f .0/ D 0,
therefore 0 D f .0/ D f0 .x/ D g.0/x for all x implies g.0/ D 0, too. For
arbitrary nonzero x and y, the equality g.y/x D g.x/y can be also expressed
as g.y/=y D g.x/=x, which means that x 7! g.x/=x is a constant function;
thus, there exists k 2 R such that g.x/ D kx for all x ¤ 0. However, this
formula works for x D 0, too, as long as we know g.0/ D 0. Thus, we obtained
f .x C y/ f .x/ f .y/ D g.y/x D g.x/y D kxy for all real numbers x and y.
Now consider the (also continuous) function h defined by h.x/ D f .x/

kx2 =2 for all x, and note that it also satisfies Cauchy’s functional equation: h.xC
y/ D h.x/ C h.y/ for all x; y 2 R, therefore there exists B 2 R such that
h.x/ D Bx for all x. With A D k=2, we thus conclude that f .x/ D Ax2 C Bx for
all real x, as in the first solution.
Of course, any of the solutions must end with the verification of the
fact that the functions given by such a formula are, indeed, solutions of the
problem, which is not at all complicated. A moment of attention shows that the
verification relies on two identities, namely,
.x C y C z/ C x C y C z D .x C y/ C .x C z/ C .y C z/
and
.x C y C z/2 C x2 C y2 C z2 D .x C y/2 C .x C z/2 C .y C z/2
that hold for all x; y; z 2 R. Knowing these identities is, of course, helpful for
solving the problem (at least for guessing the solutions)—also, they could lead
us to some generalizations of it. We are sure that the reader already recognized
some particular (and simple) cases of the identity that appeared in the solution
of problem 5 from the text (the Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv theorem). Actually, we
are sure that the reader will be able to extend the above and solve the following
more general problem: prove that the only continuous real functions f satisfying
!
X X
.1/ mjSj
f xi D0
Sf1;:::;mg i2S
for all x1 ; : : : ; xm 2 R are the polynomials of degree at most m 1 taking

value 0 for x D 0. Of course, this generalizes (besides our problem) Cauchy’s
functional equation for continuous functions, but actually, everything is based
on it (so that, in the end, we don’t get much of a generalization)—the result
follows inductively, in the vein of the second solution. However, this statement
is a nice converse of the mentioned identity (that can be useful in one proof of
the Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv theorem).
As said before, in mathematics (and not only in mathematics) there are
bridges everywhere.
12. This is a clever application of the mean value theorem, combined with the
intermediate value theorem for continuous functions. The second allows us to
prove that f has a fixed point (just apply the theorem to the continuous function
g defined by g.x/ D f .x/ x; since g.a/ 0 and g.b/ 0, there surely
exists c 2 Œa; b with g.c/ D 0)—this is actually a particular case of Brouwer’s
fixed point theorem. So, there is c 2 Œa; b such that f .c/ D c. The conditions
f .a/ D b ¤ a and f .b/ D a ¤ b show that, in fact, c is (strictly) between a
Solutions 21
and b. Now apply the mean value theorem to f on the intervals Œa; c and Œc; b;
accordingly, there exist c1 2 .a; c/ and c2 2 .c; b/ such that
f .c/ f .a/ cb

f 0 .c1 / D D
ca ca
and
f .b/ f .c/ ac

f 0 .c2 / D D :
bc bc
Of course, f 0 .c1 /f 0 .c2 / D 1 follows.

13. With the change of variable t D =2 x, we obtain
Z =2 Z 0
1 1
p dx D p dt
0 1 C .tan x/ 2 =2 1 C .tan.=2 t// 2
Z =2 Z =2
1 1
D p dt D p dx
0 1C 1=.tan t/ 2 0 1 C 1=.tan x/ 2
Z p Z
=2 2 =2
.tan x/ 1
D dx D p p dx;
0 1 C .tan x/ 2 2 0 1 C .tan x/ 2
whence
Z =2
1
p dx D :
0 1 C .tan x/ 2 4
p
Of course, there is no special significance of the exponent 2 in this
problem, and, of course, one has to note that the function under the integral is
always defined and continuous in the entire interval Œ0; =2—although
p it seems
not to be defined at =2 (or at 0, if the exponent in place of 2 is negative).
The trick that we learned from it is that you can make the change of variable
Z b
t D a C b x in an integral f .x/dx and thus infer the equality
a
Z b Z b
f .x/dx D f .a C b x/dx;
a a
which is often useful in the evaluation of definite integrals—when other

approaches fail. For example, one can calculate with this trick
Z =4
ln.1 C tan x/dx .D .=8/ ln 2/;
0
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The favourite amusement of the Californians is dancing, and Santa
Barbara is more celebrated for its fandangos than any other town on the
coast. These occur nearly every evening in the week, it being always easy to
get up an impromptu ball in five minutes, by calling in a guitar or harp
player. At these balls there is no exclusiveness, the high and low, rich and
poor, all meet on perfect equality, and dance away their sorrows, if they
have any, upon the same mud floor. No scented cards of invitation are sent
to the favoured few, but all who choose enter and participate freely. At
church and at fandangos Californians all find a level. It appears as natural
for Californians to dance as to breathe or eat. Often have I seen little girls,
scarce six years of age, flying through a cotillon, or circling in the giddy
waltz, or dancing with great skill their favourite jotah or jarabe. The girls
are all elegant waltzers, and will exhaust the strength of an ordinary
American gentleman, who is content with a few turns round the ball-room
and then a long promenade.
The town of Santa Barbara contains about five hundred inhabitants,
among whom are the Norrigas and Carillos, the two great families of
California. It is a beautiful place of residence, with a mild, springlike
climate, and around it are some of the pleasantest rides in all California.
About four miles distant is the little town of Montecito (little mountain), a
collection of farm-houses, where large quantities of vegetables are grown.
Three miles beyond this, in the heart of the mountains, is a remarkable hot
sulphur spring, to which invalids resort for the purpose of bathing, and six
miles in the opposite direction is an Indian village, containing some forty or
fifty wigwams, whose tenants are an industrious agricultural people, who
raise corn, wheat, and potatoes, and bring them into Santa Barbara for sale.
The mission of Santa Barbara is, at the present time, in a better condition
than any other mission in the country. About fifty of the converted Indians
still remain here and cultivate the soil. Around the old mission building are
several extensive orchards, in which figs, apples, pears, and peaches are
grown, and two or three vineyards, producing a grape from which excellent
wine is made. The Padre Presidente, the presiding priest of California,
resides here, the office at present devolving upon Padre Jesus Maria
Gonzales, one of the kindest and most gentlemanly men I ever met with.
PUEBLO DE LOS ANGELOS.

One hundred and ten miles south of Santa Barbara is the Pueblo de los
Angelos (City of the Angels), the garden spot of California. It is situated at
the end of an immense plain, which extends from San Pedro, the port of the
Pueblo, twenty-five miles distant, to this point. As in all California towns,
the houses are built of adobe and are covered with an asphaltum, which is
found in great quantities, issuing from the ground near the town. The
northern portion of the town is laid out in streets, and appropriated as the
residence of the trading citizens, while the southern part is made up of
gardens, vineyards, and orchards. Through all these a large stream runs,
which is used to irrigate the soil. The vineyards are lovely spots; acres upon
acres of ground are covered with vines, which are trimmed every year, and
thus kept about six feet in height, and in the fall of the year are hanging
thick with clusters of grapes. In addition to these, apples, pears, peaches,
plums, and figs are raised in great abundance. An American, named
Wolfskill, has here a vineyard containing thirty thousand bearing grape-
vines, from which he makes annually a thousand barrels of wine, and two or
three hundred of aguardiente, the brandy of the country. Some of this wine
is a very superior article, resembling in its flavour the best Madeira, while
another kind, the vino tinto, is execrable stuff. With proper care and
apparatus, however, the grape of the Pueblo could be made to yield as good
wine as any in the world; and the whole plain, twenty-five miles in extent,
reaching to the beach at San Pedro, is susceptible of the cultivation of the
vine.
Until the late astonishing growth of San Francisco, the Pueblo was the
largest town in California, containing about two thousand inhabitants, who
are principally wealthy rancheros, and those who reside there to cultivate
the grape. Game of many kinds abounds in the vicinity of the Pueblo.
During the rainy season, the plains in the direction of San Pedro are covered
with millions of geese and ducks, which are shot by the dozen, while the
surrounding hills afford an abundance of quails, deer, elk, and antelope.
The inhabitants of the Pueblo are of the better and wealthier class of
Californians, and have always been strongly disposed towards the
institutions of Mexico, and at the time of the conquest of California, they
fought with a determined resistance against the naval forces of Commodore
Stockton. They have now, however, become reconciled to the institutions of
our country, and will, I doubt not, in a few years make as good a set of
democrats as can be found in Missouri or Arkansas. They are very strongly
attached to the Roman Catholic Church, and are probably the most
“religious,” in their acceptation of the term, of any people in California.
Every morning the solemn toll of the church-bell calls them to mass; at
noon it is rung again, and every Poblano at the sound doffs his sombrero,
and remains reverently uncovered in the hot sun, while the bell reminds him
that he is to mutter over a short prayer. In whatever avocation they may be
engaged, whether fiddling, dancing, singing, slaughtering cattle, or playing
billiards or montè, the custom is invariably followed. I have seen a party in
a tavern in the Pueblo, busily engaged in betting against a montè bank,
when the noonday bell tolled; a fellow, with his last dollar in the world
placed upon a card, immediately doffed his hat and muttered his prayer; the
dealer laid down his cards and did the same, and they continued in their
humble positions till the bell ceased tolling, when the game and the
swearing went on as busily as usual.
About ten miles from Los Angelos, is the mission of San Gabriel,
located upon the river of that name, whose banks for miles are girdled with
grape-vines. This is one of the prettiest spots in California, and affords a
fine opportunity for the raising of fruit. The country around the Pueblo is by
far the most favourable portion of southern California for the settlement of
foreigners. Possessing a climate of unequalled mildness, and a soil of great
fertility, it must inevitably, ere long, be surrounded by a large population.
SAN DIEGO.
The town of San Diego is the southernmost of Upper California, the

boundary line established by the late treaty running one marine league south
of it. The harbour here, next to that at San Francisco, is the best on the
whole coast, perfectly land-locked, protected from the gales at all seasons
of the year, and the entrance is so narrow that but one vessel can pass
through at the same time. A vessel can lie within a cable’s length of the
beach, which is of hard sand, and upon which no surf runs. The town itself
lies three miles from the beach, is about the size of Santa Barbara, and is
overlooked by an old Mexican fortress. San Diego has always been the
greatest depot for hides upon the coast; the facilities for taking them from
the shore to the vessel being greater than at any other point. The climate is
mild and pleasant, and the town is rapidly growing, and bids fair to become
of great commercial importance. An immense inland trade will be carried
on from this place with the settlements that must arise on the Colorado and
Gila rivers, and around the head of the Gulf of California. The country in its
immediate vicinity is well adapted for grazing, and abounds in wild game.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE NEW TOWNS OF CALIFORNIA.
The enormous price of real estate in San Francisco, and the continual
rapid tide of emigration, will ere long cause the settlement of the new towns
seated at various points in the vicinity of the mining region. Many of these
are entirely new, but have grown and are growing with great rapidity. I
propose giving a description of their locations as a guide to those who may
desire to settle in any of them.
BENICIA.
The town or city of Benicia, which in the king’s English means Venice,
is situated in the straits of Carquinez, thirty-five miles from San Francisco,
which it promises yet to rival in point of commercial importance. The
ground upon which it is seated is a gentle slope descending to the water, and
as it reaches it becoming almost a plain. There is sufficient water at its bank
to enable vessels of the first class to lie at anchor there, and discharge their
cargoes, and the harbour is safe and exempt from violent winds. Benicia
contains already about a thousand inhabitants, including a garrison of
soldiers, having been made the head-quarters of the Pacific division of the
United States Army. The large deposits of quartermaster’s stores have been
removed from San Francisco to Benicia, and a site has been selected by
Commodore Jones for a navy-yard at this point. The town was originally
laid out some three years since by Robert Semple and Thomas O. Larkin.
Lots of fifty varas square are selling at from five hundred to two thousand
dollars.
MARTINEZ.
The town of Martinez is also located on the straits of Carquinez, nearly

opposite Benicia. The site of the town is pleasant, being upon a high bank,
while the plain around it is well wooded. The proprietor is William M.
Smith of San Francisco, who is making arrangements for building the town.
NEW YORK OF THE PACIFIC.

At the junction of the river San Joaquin and the bay of Suisun, lies New
York of the Pacific. The town is seated on a broad and well-watered plain,
covered with many groves of magnificent oaks, extending from the waters
of the bay and the river San Joaquin to the hills some three miles back. So
gradual is the slope that it seems a perfect level, viewed from the river’s
bank; but standing at the base of the hills looking toward the water, the
slope will be found to be perfect and regular to the water’s edge, where it
terminates upon a fine sand-beach, from five to ten feet above the level of
the highest tide. New York is beautifully laid out, with large reserves for
churches, a university, and other public edifices, and is perhaps one of the
most healthy points in the country, being free from fever and ague and the
prevailing fevers usual on fresh-water rivers below and between the mining
region and San Francisco. But the great advantage which New York of the
Pacific possesses over other places above San Francisco is, that it is at the
head of ship navigation, as two regular surveys, published by distinguished
military and naval officers of Suisun Bay have demonstrated. Ships of the
largest class can sail direct from the ocean to New York, where they will
find a safe and convenient harbour, and where at this time are lying a
number of merchant ships from differents parts of the Union, directly
alongside the bank upon which they have discharged their cargoes.
New York is surrounded on all sides by the most fertile agricultural
districts of Northern California. The Sacramento, San Joaquin, and San Jose
valleys being tributary to this point which is as the centre of so many radii,
while the entire land travel from San Jose and the Contra Costa, and indeed
of all southern California, flows through this channel. The whole
transportation to the rich placers of the Stanislaus, Mokelumne, Tuolumne,
Merced, and Mariposa, as well as the famous mines of the Middle, North,
and South Forks, Feather and Yuba rivers, must pass the new city. The great
railroad, destined to connect the Pacific Ocean and the Mississippi River,
will undoubtedly terminate at New York, as it is in a direct line with the
only pass in the mountains through which a railroad can reach the waters
which empty into the Bay of San Francisco. This is a fact well established
by the most distinguished engineers. Through the enterprise of Col. J. D.
Stevenson and Dr. William C. Parker, both of the New York regiment of
volunteers, the first survey of the bay of Suisun and the adjacent waters was
made. These gentlemen are the principal owners of New York.
SUISUN.
The city of “Suisun,” alluded to in the first chapter of this narrative

under the cognomen of Hala-chum-muck, is laid out on the west bank of the
Sacramento, at a distance of eighty miles from San Francisco, and is about
half-way between San Francisco and Sacramento City. The town is seated
on high ground, and is entirely free from the tule, a rush that grows upon
the marshy banks of the river. It is beautifully laid out, with large reserves
for churches, a university, and other public edifices, and the beauty of its
climate and surrounding scenery will eventually make it a favourable and
pleasant place of residence. The proprietors are Thomas Douglass and C. V.
Grillespie. Lots are selling at from $250 to $800.
SUTTER.
The city of Sutter is beautifully located on the eastern bank of the

Sacramento River, adjoining Sacramento City, and is perhaps the most
eligible site for a commercial town in all Northern California. It is situated
on the highest and healthiest ground on the whole river, the banks at this
point not being subject to the annual overflow. The largest class of
steamboats and all vessels navigating the Sacramento River, can lie and
discharge their cargoes directly at its banks.
Sutter was originally laid out by Captain J. A. Sutter and others, but has
not until recently been brought forward by its proprietors. It has, however, a
thriving business population, and promises to become a city of the first size
and importance. Excellent roads diverge from this point to the rich placers
of the North, Middle, and South Forks, Bear River, Yuba, and Feather
Rivers, and also to the mines of the San Joaquin. It is surrounded on all
sides by a fine agricultural and well-wooded country, and will soon be the
depot for the great northern mines. Its present proprietors are the Hon. John
M’Dougal, Lieutenant-Governor of the State of California, and Captain J.
A. Sutter.
VERNON.
Vernon is situated on the east bank of Feather River at the point of its
confluence with the Sacramento, one of the most eligible positions for a
town in the whole northern region of California. The banks of the river are
high and not subject to overflow, and this point is said to be at the head of
ship navigation on the Sacramento. The ground is a gentle slope,
surrounded by a beautiful country. From the town of Vernon, good and well
travelled roads diverge to the rich mineral regions of the North and Middle
Forks, Bear Creek, Yuba and Feather Rivers, rendering the distance much
less than by any other route. The town is growing rapidly, and promises to
become a great depot for the trade of the above-mentioned mines. The
proprietors are Franklin Bates, Elisha O. Crosby, and Samuel Norriss.
BOSTON.
The city of Boston is located on the northern bank of the American Fork,
at its junction with the Sacramento River, about one hundred yards above
the old Embarcadero, the site upon which Sacramento City now stands. It
extends upon the banks of both rivers for several miles, and is destined to
become a flourishing town. The banks of the Sacramento at this point are
not subject to overflow, being more than twelve feet in many places above
high water mark. The town is situated upon a broad and well-watered plain,
covered with many groves of magnificent oaks, and the largest class of
steamers, and all vessels navigating the Sacramento River can lie and
discharge directly at its banks.
Boston has been surveyed by J. Halls, Esq., and Lieut. Ringgold, U. S.
N., and is laid out in squares of two hundred and forty feet by three hundred
and twenty feet, subdivided each into eight building lots eighty feet by one
hundred and twenty feet, with large public squares, and reservations for
school-houses, churches, and public buildings. One of the peculiar
advantages of Boston is that, being located on the northern bank of the
American Fork, it is not necessary in proceeding to the gold mines to cross
that river, which is exceedingly high and rapid at some seasons of the year.
The direct and most travelled road proceeds from this point to the rich
placers of the Yuba, Feather River, Bear Creek, and the North, Middle, and
South Forks of the American. The soil is of the richest description, the
surrounding scenery highly picturesque, and the plains in the immediate
vicinity are covered with wild game of every variety which California
affords. The title to the land is indisputable, coming by warranty deed from
Captain J. A. Sutter to Eleab Grimes, Hiram Grimes, and John Sinclair,
bearing date August 10th, 1843. The present owner is Hiram Grimes, Esq.
Lots are selling rapidly at from $200 to $1000 each, and before many
months the city of Boston on the golden banks of the Rio Sacramento will
rival its New England namesake in business and importance.
STOCKTON.
The town of Stockton is the great mart through which flows the whole
transportation and travel to the placers of the Stanislaus, Mokelumne,
Mariposa, Mercedes, Tuolumne, and King’s River, and the various dry
diggings lying between them. Stockton is to the southern mines what
Sacramento is to the northern. The town is located upon a slough, or rather
a succession of sloughs, which contain the back waters formed by the
junction of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. It is about fifty miles
from the mouth of the San Joaquin, and one hundred from San Francisco.
The ground is high and does not overflow, and is the centre of the two great
tracts of arable land which constitute the valleys of the rivers above named.
Vessels drawing from nine to ten feet of water can proceed up the San
Joaquin to Stockton, and discharge their cargoes on the bank.
The town of Stockton was laid out in the latter part of 1848 by Charles
M. Weber, and has been growing rapidly since. Eight months ago there
were but one frame building and a few tents, and now it is a town
containing a population of nearly two thousand permanent residents, and a
movable population of about a thousand more, on their way to and from the
southern mines. Several large brigs and schooners are constantly lying at
the banks, and two steamboats and a large number of launches are
constantly running from San Francisco. Real estate has risen greatly in
value within the past six months,—lots, which could have been purchased
at that time for $300, being now worth from $3000 to $6000. A theatre has
been established at Stockton, and the town promises ere long to be a large
and populous city.
STANISLAUS.
This town is laid out on the north bank of the Stanislaus River, at its
junction with the San Joaquin. The Stanislaus River is the first and largest
tributary of the San Joaquin, and the river is navigable for ordinary-sized
schooners and launches to this point, which, being nearer the southern
mining region than Stockton, will doubtless become a great resort for
miners and traders in that vicinity. The town was originally laid out by
Samuel Brannan & Co.
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO.
The city of South San Francisco is located on the bay, about two miles
south of San Francisco, which it promises to rival at no very distant day.
The depth of water at this point is the same as that in the harbour of San
Francisco, and it is said that vessels are more securely protected from the
wind. At many points in front of the town, vessels of the largest class can
lie within a boat’s length of the shore. The land rises in a gentle slope, and
is of a rich clayey soil, which effectually prevents dust during the
prevalence of the customary winds on the bay. The surrounding scenery is
delightful, and near the town is the rich and beautiful valley in which is
located the old mission of Dolores. A stream of fine water, sufficient to
supply all the shipping in the harbour, runs through the town, and the only
practicable road from San Francisco to San Josè, Monterey, and the whole
lower country, passes directly by it. South San Francisco, though it may
never equal its northern namesake, will at least become, at no very distant
day, what Brooklyn is to New York. The proprietors of South San Francisco
are John Townsend and Corneille De Boom.
ALVESO.
The want of a great commercial town at the head of the great bay of San
Francisco has been supplied by the location of Alveso. It is situated at the
head of the bay, on the Guadalupe River, a stream running directly through
the centre of the town, and navigable at all seasons of the year to vessels
drawing twelve feet of water. The depot and business headquarters of the
two finest valleys in California, the Santa Clara and the Pueblo, where
everything required for their already numerous population must be
received; convenient of access to the gold mines, and directly on the route
between them and San Francisco; with a climate unequalled, even in Upper
California; with pure water; free from inundations at all seasons; with mills
which even now furnish lumber at one-third its price in San Francisco,—the
town of Alveso must inevitably grow into importance. It has been carefully
surveyed and laid out into lots; contracts have been made for the immediate
erection of warehouses and dwellings, and a bridge is now being built
across the Guadalupe River, connecting the two portions of the town. The
proprietors are J. D. Koppe, Peter H. Burnett, and Charles B. Marvin, who
will doubtless reap a rich harvest, the fruits of their judicious enterprise.
CHAPTER XV.
LOWER CALIFORNIA.
The territory of Lower California (California Baja) has been so much

misrepresented, that although partially foreign to the object of this work, I
consider it may not be uninteresting to learn something of a country which,
I am satisfied, will one day create almost as much excitement in the old
world as her northern sister has already done. A residence of six months
upon the gulf of California entirely changed the opinion I had previously
entertained of the country, which had been based upon reports of those who
had merely sailed up or down its rugged coast. It has been described as the
“tail end of an earthquake,”—as possessing a soil upon which nothing could
be grown, a hot and sickly climate, and containing no internal resources of
value.
Lower California extends from Cape St. Lucas to a line running one
marine league south of San Diego, being bounded on the west by the
Pacific Ocean, and on the east by the gulf of California. I went to Lower
California in the full anticipation of living a miserable life for the time it
would be necessary for me to remain there. But how much was I surprised,
on landing in La Paz, on the afternoon of July 21st, 1847, to find the
prettiest town I had then seen in California. The streets were lined with
willow trees, which, meeting overhead, formed an arch, affording a
delicious shade at midday. The houses were all of adobe, plastered white,
and thatched with the leaves of the palm-tree, and were most delightfully
cool. The whole beach was lined with palms, date, fig, tamarind, and
cocoanut trees, their delicious fruits hanging upon them in clusters.
The detachment of the 7th regiment of New York Volunteers, which was
ordered to La Paz, consisted of two companies, “A” and “B,” under
command of Lieut. Col. Henry S. Burton. When we arrived, we found that
country in a quiet state; and although no American force had ever been
stationed there, the inhabitants appeared very much pleased at our arrival,
and manifested no hostility toward us. Our orders were to take possession
of, and hold the country; and in accordance with these we landed, and
pitched our camp in the plaza, previous to removing into a large barrack,
which was not then quite completed. When our men were fairly barracked,
the officers were allowed to live in rooms in the town, and select such
places as they chose. I found a room in the house of Don Francisco Silva, a
Portuguese, who had lived long in the country, and owned the finest
vineyard and fruit-garden in the town. Here I lived in a style of Eastern
luxuriance. Never before did I, and never shall I desire to enjoy life in
greater perfection than I did there. My room was in the rear of the house,
and fronting upon a garden filled with grape-vines, fig, orange, lime,
banana, and pomegranate trees, loaded with fruit. I slept in a swinging cot,
surrounded by a silken canopy, as a protection from mosquitoes; and often
have I taken my cot, swung it before the limbs of a large fig-tree, and slept
beneath that clear, unclouded sky, rocked to slumber by the delightful
evening land-breeze. In the morning, before breakfast, I would pick from
the limbs and eat a few dozens of ripe, fresh figs, by way of giving me an
appetite. But the most delicious portion of this delicious life was the
bathing. In the centre of the garden was a large stone reservoir, kept
continually filled with water, and used for the purpose of irrigation. Into this
I would jump at noon, and, standing upon the stony bottom, could gather
big clusters of grapes, hanging upon an arbour that overspread the whole
bath. Our military duties were so light that they never interfered with this
pleasant mode of life, particularly as our commanding officer was not very
strict in his enforcement of them, and the reveillé drum seldom disturbed
my morning slumbers.
If an epicure wishes to enjoy life at a low rate, I advise him to go to
Lower California. The Gulf affords every variety of fish, and all the tropical
fruits grow in the greatest profusion. For several months we lived upon
green turtle, caught directly in front of the town,—some of them weighed
one hundred and fifty pounds, and were sold to us at twenty-five cents
apiece. In addition to this, the shores afforded mussels and oysters in great
plenty, and the soil produces every variety of vegetables. Among the fruits
of Lower California is one which grows wild, and is peculiar to the country,
called the petalla, the most delicious fruit I ever ate. It grows upon a kind of
cactus tree, and somewhat resembles a prickly pear, being covered with a
thorny rind, which, being taken off, exhibits a pulp of a rich red colour. The
great peculiarity of this fruit is, that out of a hundred no two have the same
flavour. One resembles in taste a strawberry; another, seems flavoured with
winter-green; the next with peach, and so on through the whole range of
cultivated fruits.
The climate of Lower California is equal to that of Italy or Persia.
During the whole year, the thermometer never varies ten degrees, usually
ranging from eighty to ninety degrees, except at noon, when it sometimes
reaches one hundred. In the winter, no other than thin clothing is worn, and
an overcoat is never needed. It is an eternal summer. Such gorgeous sunsets
and clear star-lit skies, can be found in no other portion of the world.
During my whole residence there, I never saw a cloud as large as my hand
upon the sky, and a drop of rain never fell. There is no rainy season in
Lower California; rain usually falls three or four times in the course of a
year, but the necessity of it is almost superseded by the heavy dews which
fall every night.
The healthiness of the country is remarkable. During our sojourn there of
more than a year, no death from sickness occurred in our detachment of
more than a hundred men, and but two deaths during the whole time in the
town, which consisted of fifteen hundred inhabitants. An officer of our
regiment who was stationed in Upper California, and who had been
pronounced by his physicians to be in the last stage of pulmonary
consumption, as a last resort went to Lower California. The result was, that
in three months he completely regained his health, and I saw him a few
days since a stout, hearty man.
The people of Lower California are a curious race of beings; isolated
from their mother country and neglected by her, they have assumed a sort of
independence of thought and action which I never found in Upper
California; but a kinder-hearted, more hospitable class of people never
lived. Their thatched houses are ever open for the reception of visiters, and
a glass of wine and a paper cigar are always offered to any one who chooses
to enter. The manner in which the people of La Paz live is peculiar. In the
main street, the houses are built of adobe, whitewashed, with roofs
principally of cane and palm-tree, laid flat and covered with the shell of the
pearl oyster. Some of them are of more than one story in height. Some of
the floors are laid with large square bricks, but by far the greater portion of
them are of the native mud. In the interior arrangement, little attention is
paid to decoration. A few camp-stools covered with leather, or a drum-
shaped seat with a piece of raw hide drawn over it, a table, a bed, and an
earthen jar filled with water, usually compose the furniture. The bed is
usually very neat, with clean linen sheets and curtains, with red satin
covered pillows. In the other parts of the town and on the outskirts, the
houses are very small, some of them of adobe, others of reeds, plastered
with mud, and others are nothing more than a parcel of dried bushes
intertwined. These generally contain but one room, with no more furniture
than a few seats, and sometimes a bed made of a dried hide tightly drawn
across four posts. Here father, mother, daughters, and sons, all lie down
promiscuously on a hide stretched upon the floor, or, more commonly still,
outside in the open air, and sleep heads and points in most admirable
confusion. Indeed, this sleeping out of doors is not confined to any
particular class, but is practised by all during the summer months, and is
really a delightful mode of passing the night. The men are generally tall and
well-formed, and dress in the manner of Mexicans of the same class.
But the women, “Heaven’s last, best work,” how shall I describe them?
They are found in Lower California of all shades, from the blackest ebony
to the whitest lily. Where such a variety of colour could have arisen, I
cannot imagine. Their dress is usually a skirt, merely reaching to the waist,
while above this, is a white bodice which does not reach quite so high in the
neck as is required by the strict rules of feminine modesty. They wear no
hats or bonnets, but in lieu of them a reboso is thrown around their heads,
and falls in graceful folds over their shoulders. Many of them go barefoot,
and very few wear stockings, considering them an unnecessary luxury.
Simple as are these articles of dress, the La Paz girls delight as much as
their more refined sisters in our northern cities in exhibiting themselves to
advantage. I have seen a fair señorita on her way to church, as barefooted as
the day she first trod the earth, carrying on her shoulders a beautiful silk
reboso, which must have cost a hundred dollars. The ladies all indulge in
the “amiable weakness” of smoking cigaritos, and the blue wreaths are
curling about their dark faces from morning to night. The state of morals
amongst them is as loose as their dress, and the poorer classes are sunk in
the lowest state of prostitution. Cases have often occurred where the bargain
for the daughter’s dishonour has previously been made with the mother.
Strange as this may appear in a country upon which the light of Christianity
has shone, and among a people professing to be Christian, it is,
nevertheless, strictly true.
In fact the morals of the whole community, male and female, need
improving. An old priest named Gabriel, who, at the time I was there, was
Padre Presidente of Lower California, in open violation of his vows of
chastity, was living in the family relation, and had been the means of
bringing into the world no less than eleven children. One of these had taken
his name, always travelled with him, and was himself studying for the
priesthood. I witnessed a very amusing incident once with Gabriel, in which
I bore a part, and which exhibits the peculiar state of morals among some of
the priesthood of Mexican territory. Gabriel was a most inveterate gambler,
and often amused himself, when on his parochial tours, by opening a game
of montè for any of his parishioners who chose to bet against him, although
he often found difficulty in obtaining a game, because, as the “knowing
ones” said, “El padre sabe mucho.”
Soon after our arrival at La Paz, Gabriel, who resided in Todos Santos,
came over to visit his flock in La Paz, and as we were then the lions of the
place, he invited the officers to visit him at his temporary residence in the
town. Soon after we entered, when he had brought out a bottle of good old
wine, he very quietly took from a pocket in his cassock a pack of montè
cards, and asked us if we had any objection to a quiet game. Out of courtesy
we told him that we had no objection, and the padre commenced dealing
and we betting.
After our amusement had been in progress about half an hour, during
which time the padre had beaten us to the amount of a few dollars, the bell
of the church tolled. The padre laid down his cards and said with perfect
nonchalance: “Dispensarne Señores, tengo que bautizar un niño.” (Excuse
me, gentlemen, I have a child to baptize.) He invited us to proceed to the
church with him, and when we arrived, we found a woman with a child
anxiously waiting in the doorway. When, however, the padre was ready to
commence operations, it was found that there was no one present to stand in
the capacity of compadre (godfather). Gabriel invited me to perform this
service. I told him I was not a Catholic. “No le hace,” was his reply; and I
accordingly stood at the baptismal font while the padre sprinkled the
youngster and muttered over some Latin, after which, he turned to my
companions and myself, and said, “Ahora, Señores, vamos a jugar otra
verz.” (Now, gentlemen, we will go and play again); and we accordingly
returned to the house and resumed the game. Gabriel was afterwards taken
prisoner by our forces and sent to Mazatlan. He was one of the leading
spirits in the revolution that afterwards occurred, and I doubt not that he
came to La Paz, at the time of which I have spoken, to learn our force, and
the probabilities of our being taken.
Among such a people, ignorant but kind, and in such a glorious climate,
I passed my days in happiness and pleasure. When the shades of evening
gathered around us, a little knot of us used to assemble beneath a spreading
tamarind tree, and listen to songs in the enchanting Spanish, sung by a
beautiful creature who had undertaken the task of teaching me her
language, and in which, I flatter myself, she found an apt scholar. A ramble
then upon the broad, hard beach, beneath that beautiful starlight, would
close our evening’s pleasures, or a dance upon a greensward in a grove of
fig-trees, prepare us for a sweet slumber.
Sometimes we took little excursions upon the broad and placid bay, and
one of these, which extended to a visit to the Pearl Fishery, I will relate:
On a clear, beautiful, moonlit night, in the latter part of October, a party
of three of us, in a little fishing-boat, stood out from the Bay of La Paz, to
proceed to the Pearl Fishery of San Lorenzo, about twenty miles distant. We
chose the night, for its coolness, and for the delicious land breeze which
blew our little boat so rapidly over the water, and afforded so pleasing a
contrast in feeling to the burning sun and stirless atmosphere of a tropical
climate.
To one who has never been buoyed on the waters of the Gulf of
California, no description can convey an accurate idea of its stillness and
beauty, when, at the close of the long, sunny day, it is resting beneath the
smile of the unclouded, starry sky, which is ever above it. Like a little
inland lake in summer-time, unrippled and mirror-like, its waters were so
clear that, even by moonlight, its shell-paved bottom was plainly
discernible. Millions of little emerald-coloured gems of phosphorescent
light, were floating over its bosom; and the track of the leaping porpoises
and golden dolphins was followed by a stream of liquid fire.
As we neared “Pichelingo,” the entrance to the harbour, we observed on
the beach, about a mile distant, a bright light, and as the land breeze was
dying away, we made for it, thinking that probably a party of divers were
there, on their way to the fishery. We stood in, and soon reached the light,
which we found to be a fire built on shore. We landed, hauled up our boat,
and found two tall, naked Indians, engaged in cooking their evening meal of
pozzoli, or boiled corn: they were tortoise-shell fishers, and had with them a
large quantity of these most beautiful shells. They invited us to participate
in their frugal meal, but we had provisions of our own, and, roasting some
salt pork on their fire and brewing a steaming hot punch, we ate and drank
sufficiently, spread our blankets on the sand and lay down to sleep by the
side of our Indian friends. At daylight a good breeze sprang up, and,
thanking our Indians for their hospitality and presenting each with a small
sum of money, we again made sail.
About 11 o’clock we rounded the low, sandy point, which forms one side
of the entrance to the pretty little bay of San Lorenzo. We were received on
the beach by about three hundred tall, black-looking Indians, prepared to
start on their daily occupation of diving. Through the politeness of one of
the “armadores,” or owners, six of the busos (divers) were placed in our
boat, and we pushed off for the fishing-ground, near the shore of the huge
rocky island of Espiritu Santo. Thirty canoes, filled with divers, started with
us, and in half an hour we were on the ground. Here the water was the most
beautifully clear I ever saw. It was some four or five fathoms in depth, but
so transparent that the pearly treasures in its bed were as plain to our sight
as though air only separated them from us. The divers divested themselves
of every particle of clothing, with the exception of a girdle tightly bound
round their loins, and armed with nothing but a sharp-pointed stick, about a
foot in length, used for the double purpose of fighting sharks and digging
up the shell, they commenced their labours. Starting up suddenly on the
gunwale of the boat, and giving a shrill whistle, to expel the air from their
lungs, with a dive as graceful as a dolphin’s leap, they plunged into the
water, and made a straight course for the bottom. The dive itself carried
them about two fathoms downward, and every subsequent stroke one
fathom. Arrived at the bottom, they commenced digging up the shell, and
each one soon returned to the surface with an armful, which he threw into
the boat, and then would dive again for a fresh load, and so they continued
for nearly three hours, with scarcely a moment’s intermission. Some
brought up fish and sea-weed, others beautiful shells, and one fellow
captured a small shark, which he threw into the boat, very much to the
annoyance of us landsmen.
These divers are Indians from the Slake River, in the province of Sonora,
who come every season to the coast of California to pursue their avocation.
About three o’clock the whole fleet started for the shore, and, arrived there,
each buso carried his pile of shell on the beach, and the crew of each boat,
forming a circle, threw into its centre one-half of their shells. These were
the property of the armador, and were first opened, and the pearls given to
him. The old fellow stood by, watching the divers very closely, as some of
them are exceedingly expert in suddenly swallowing any valuable pearl
they may chance to find in the owner’s pile. The pearls are found in the
body of the oyster, of all sizes, from that of a pin’s head to that of a walnut.
Sometimes a hundred oysters are opened without finding a single pearl,
while in others many are found. When the owner’s oysters are all opened,
each diver commences on his own pile; and any valuable pearl he may find
is usually sold to the armador on the spot, at about one-half its real value.
The pearl fisheries of Lower California have been carried on since the
earliest discovery of the country, and immense fortunes have been made in
them. There are at present about one hundred vessels yearly engaged in this
business during the fishing season, which continues from May to
November. The oysters are all taken by diving, no scientific apparatus
having yet been successfully introduced. A diving-bell was tried by an
English company some years ago, but this mode was soon abandoned, from
some cause which I could never learn. The shells of the oysters are piled up
on the beach, and sold to whalers and trading vessels that visit the coast.
The oysters being all opened, the divers take their first meal in the day,
which consists of nothing more than a bowl of atole, a kind of water-gruel,
with a little dried meat thrown into it. This, and the use of the boats, is all
that is furnished by the armador, for which he receives one-half the pearls.
It was the last day of the fishing season, and before we left, as was
always the custom, the little brush houses, temporarily thrown up on the
beach, were fired by the divers, and a general jubilee held. We left them in
the most glorious state of intoxication, and setting sail once more, after
spending another night on the beach of Pichelingo, we arrived safely in La
Paz the next day at noon.
The great resources of Lower California are its mines of silver, gold,
copper, and iron, the former metal being most abundant. The whole
mountain range, which extends along the coast, is one immense silver mine,
equal in richness to those of Mexico or Peru. At the present time only three
or four mines are wrought, owing to the lack of energy in the inhabitants,
and the entire absence of scientific mining apparatus,—all the necessary
labour being performed by men and mules. In making inquiries for a place
to search for silver in Lower California, the old settlers in reply merely
point their fingers to the mountain range, and say, “Por hay” (that way,
anywhere there); and it is a fact, that a shaft may be sunk in any part of the
mountains, and silver ore always extracted, varying in richness from fifteen
to seventy per cent. of pure silver. The principal silver mines at present
wrought are in San Antonio, half-way from La Paz to Cape St. Lucas. These
are owned by the Hidalgos, who send annually out of the country about two
hundred thousand dollars worth of plata pina.
Near Loretto are large and extensive copper mines; lead and iron are
found everywhere, and gold-washings have always been wrought in the
country with considerable success. If this territory ever becomes settled by
an energetic population, millions of wealth will be annually gathered in its
borders, and it will stand side by side in point of riches with the countries
that have already made themselves famous by the wealth lying in their
bosoms.
As an agricultural country Lower California is rather deficient, although
there are many watered valleys which produce in great profusion all the
common culinary vegetables, and wherever the soil can be irrigated, it
produces all the tropical fruits and the vegetables of the temperate zones in
great luxuriance. Cotton of the finest staple grows wild upon the plains
around La Paz, and cane, from which a very good article of sugar is made,
grows all over the land. Wine is made from the grape of the country, which
is of the most delicious kind.
When we went to Lower California, our orders were to assure the
inhabitants that their country was to be retained as a portion of the territory
of the United States. The message of President Polk and the proclamation of
Commodore Shubrick supported this idea, and upon the representations
thus made, the most influential inhabitants committed themselves to the
American cause, and were exceedingly gratified with the expected result. In
the month of November, we were attacked by a Mexican force of six
hundred, under command of Don Manuel Pineda, a captain in the Mexican
army, who published a long proclamation threatening death and destruction
to the Californians who supported our cause. Notwithstanding this, during a
severe and trying siege, which lasted six weeks, many of the rancheros
from the interior came in and joined us, and for this whole time a company
of native Californians, under the command of the former governor of the
territory, Don Francisco Palacèo, fought bravely with us and rendered us

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Richardson, TX, USA Titu Andreescu

9 The Splitting Method and Double Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

© Springer Science+Business Media LLC 2017 1

Also, Thales’ interception theorem says that

f .xy/ D f .x/ C f .y/ for all x; y 2 N

one sees immediately that lim nk =k D ln n= ln 2.

Now we can let k go to infinity, yielding

magazine founded long ago, in 1895, by a few enthusiastic mathematicians and

f .f .x// C f .x/ C x D 0 for every real x‹

jA1 C C As j  minfp; s C 1g:

In particular, if A1 ; : : : ; Ap1 are subsets with two elements of Zp , then

.x1 C y/ C C .xsC1 C y/ D .x1 C z/ C C .xsC1 C z/;

which means .s C 1/y D .s C 1/z. As 1 s C 1 p 1, this implies y D z

Now for the proof of Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv theorem, consider a1 a2 : : :

valid for all elements x1 ; : : : ; xm of a commutative ring and for any 1 k m 1.

.anC1 an /.anC1 an1 / : : : .anC1 a1 /

is convergent, and find its limit.

f .x C y C z/ C f .x/ C f .y/ C f .z/ D f .x C y/ C f .x C z/ C f .y C z/

14. Show that

for all real numbers a and b.

2k C 1 D .k C 1/2 k2 l2 k2 D 9.b a/ 81:

So k 40 and a direct (boring, but simple) inspection show that no perfect

j.j l/ai .Œjai Œlai /j <

However, onep of ˛ p and =6 ˛ is at most =12, thus either p cos p˛ 

m, and a canonical application of Newton’s formulae shows that the symmetric

kXk D max jxij j

mkAm k D kAm B BAm k kAm Bk C kBAm k 2nkAm kkBk

hence b a > c b. (Jensen’s inequality can be avoided; we can write

.c b/.ck1 C ck2 b C C bk1 / D .b a/.bk1 C bk2 a C C ak1 /;

then use a < b < c.)

nk nk11 ; : : : ; nk nks s ; nkC1

are s C 1 powers with exponent at least 2 forming an arithmetic progression

and, on the other hand,

and the conclusion

lim .anC1 an /.anC1 an1 / .anC1 a1 / D 0

lim .a1 C C an /=n D a, too (an immediate consequence of the Stolz-Cesàro

bn D .anC1 an /.anC1 an1 / .anC1 a1 / D nŠ;

hence lim bn D 0. So, anything can happen if we drop the convergence

Note that, since Im1  n1 J1 means

n1 c1 < am1 < bm1 < n1 d1 ;

c1 < c2 < d2 < d1 and, consequently, J2  J1 follows. Then (again, by the

f ..m C 2/t/ 2f ..m C 1/t/ C f .mt/ D f .2t/ 2f .t/

f .2t/ 2f .t/ 2 4f .t/ f .2t/

f .2/ 2f .1/ 4f .1/ f .2/

Now consider the (also continuous) function h defined by h.x/ D f .x/

.x C y C z/2 C x2 C y2 C z2 D .x C y/2 C .x C z/2 C .y C z/2

for all x1 ; : : : ; xm 2 R are the polynomials of degree at most m 1 taking

f .c/ f .a/ cb

jA1 C C As j minfp; s C 1g:

However, onep of ˛ p and =6 ˛ is at most =12, thus either p cos p˛

Note that, since Im1 n1 J1 means

c1 < c2 < d2 < d1 and, consequently, J2 J1 follows. Then (again, by the