True or False?
If a , b and c are roots to the equation x 3 + x 2 + x = 1 , and let S n = a n + b n + c n , then there exists a positive integer n such that sgn ( S n ) = sgn ( S n + 1 ) = sgn ( S n + 2 ) .
Notation : sgn ( x ) : = ⎩ ⎨ ⎧ − 1 0 1 if x < 0 if x = 0 if x > 0 denotes the sign function .
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Observe that from the given equation, we can obtain the recursive relation S n + 3 + S n + 2 + S n + 1 = S n , n ≥ 1 We can check it manually that the signs of S 1 , S 2 , S 3 are not the same. Now, let us assume that ∃ n ≥ 1 such that the signs of S n + 1 , S n + 2 , S n + 3 matches and let the sign be called s ∈ { − 1 , 0 , 1 } . Then, from the recursive relation, it is evident that S n should also have the sign s . Using the recursive relation and the fact that S n + 2 , S n + 1 , S n have the same sign let us further conclude that S n − 1 also have the same sign s . Then by induction it will follow that all S k , 1 ≤ k ≤ n + 3 have the same sign s , which clearly simply is not true because of the sign mismatch of S 1 , S 2 , S 3 . Thus the answer is f a l s e .