Funky Functional Equation

Algebra Level 5

Let f : R + R + f:\mathbb{R^+} \rightarrow \mathbb{R^+} be a function satisfying

f ( 1 ) = 2 f(1)=2

f ( 2 ) = 1 f(2)=1

f ( 3 n ) = 3 f ( n ) f(3n)=3f(n)

f ( 3 n + 1 ) = 3 f ( n ) + 2 f(3n+1)=3f(n)+2

f ( 3 n + 2 ) = 3 f ( n ) + 1. f(3n+2)=3f(n)+1.

Find the number of integers n 2006 n \leq 2006 such that f ( n ) = 2 n . f(n)=2n.


See Part 2 if you enjoyed this problem! :D


The answer is 127.

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1 solution

Patrick Corn
Apr 22, 2014

You really need to restrict to positive integers here, since f ( 0 ) = 0 f(0) = 0 can be deduced from the equations (and there are a lot of negative integers that satisfy f ( n ) = 2 n f(n) =2n as well...)

Clearly f f (when restricted to nonnegative integers) is just the function that switches the 1 1 s and 2 2 s in the ternary expansion of an integer. It's not hard to see that f ( n ) = 2 n f(n) = 2n if and only if n n 's ternary expansion consists of only 0 0 s and 1 1 s. The restriction on n n means that it has at most 7 7 ternary digits. So the total number of such nonnegative n n is 2 7 2^7 , or 2 7 1 = 127 2^7-1 = \fbox{127} if we restrict to positive integers.

Can you tell me how to find out all such things? @Patrick Corn - That it is to be observed form its ternary representation and all that. Is there any method to find out such things?

Jayakumar Krishnan - 7 years ago

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You just have to be comfortable with ternary. Most of the people who can do this that were able to see the function immediately.

Finn Hulse - 7 years ago

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oh...thanks :)

Jayakumar Krishnan - 7 years ago

Great! I made that little change to the problem. :D

Finn Hulse - 7 years, 1 month ago

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