Let us write an interesting theorem about monotonic subsequences of sequences of real numbers:
Theorem 1 (Erdos). Let
be a sequence of real numbers of length .
Then there is a monotonic subsequence of this sequence of length at least n+1.
There are many proofs of this theorem, but none of them can
compete with a proof given by P. Erdos.
For this page to be complete 'Literka' includes another page with the proof of Erdos of his theorem.
'Literka' doesn't want to
add one more proof to a long list of other proofs. The purpose
of further text is to prove a substantial strengthening of Theorem 1:
Theorem 2 (Erdos, strengthened by 'Literka'). Let
be a sequence of different real numbers of length
(i.e. n>0 is a natural number and k=
). Assume that the maximal length of monotonic subsequence of this sequence is less or equal than n. Then there exists a function B(i,j)
for n>=i,j>0 (sign >= means bigger or equal) such that
B(i1,j1) =B(i2,j2) if and only if i1=i2 and j1=j2,
B(i,j) = for some k>m>0,
B(i1,j)>B(i2,j) if i1>i2,
B(i,j1)>B(i,j2) if j2>j1,
Assume B(i1,j)=
and B(i2,j)=
Then i1>i2 if and only if t>s,
Assume B(i,j1)=
and B(i,j2)=
Then j1>j2 if and only if s>t.
Theorem 2 can be written in a simpler way:
Theorem 2 (Erdos, strengthened by 'Literka'). Let A={
} be a sequence of different real numbers of length
(i.e. n>0 is a natural number and k= ). Assume that the maximal length of monotonic subsequence of this sequence is less or equal than n. Then the numbers
are the entries of some matrix B of size n x n (n rows, n columns) such that rows of this matrix are increasing subsequences of A and columns of this matrix B are decreasing subsequences of A.
Theorem 1 follows from Theorem 2. To see this take a sequence G={
}
of different real numbers, where k=
. Take a subsequence A of first
numbers of G. Of course, we can assume that the assumptions of Theorem 2 for A are satisfied, otherwise there is nothing to prove. Compare
with B(n,n) (B is a function from the assertion of Theorem 2) and add
to a subsequence of A , which is n-th row of B or to the n-th column of B (we can regard B as a matrix).
Let us recall that a function f:[0,1] -> R is called a step function if there is a partition of the interval I=[0,1] into smaller intervals
(not necessarily closed intervals) where the function f is constant.
Let P denote a square [0,1] x [0,1] = I x I. We'll say that a partition U of P into a family of subsets is a rectangle partition if it was created by cutting of P with horizontal or vertical straight lines.
To prove Theorem 2 we need the following 2 lemmas:
Lemma 1. Let f:[0,1] -> R be a step function with p values and
be intervals where f is constant. Assume that f(x) =
for
. Then there exist:
a rectangle partition U of P
partition of P into subsets
each
is a union of sets of a rectangle partition U
area of
(which is a sum of areas of rectangles) is equal to the length of
define a function h: P -> I = [0,1] by h(x,y)=
for
. Then
h(x1,y)>=h(x2,y) if x1>x2
h(x,y1)>=h(x,y2) if y2>y1
Lemma 2. Let
be a partition of P and k=
. Assume that all elements
have equal area (hence area must be 1/k for each
). Assume that every vertical or horizontal straight line crosses at most n sets from this partition. Then partition is a rectangle partition and all
are squares.
Theorem 2 is a straightforward consequence of Lemma 1 and Lemma 2. Let A={
} be a sequence as in the assumption of Theorem 2. Let
=[i/k,(i+1)/k) and define h: [0,1] -> R setting h(x)=
for
. Lemma 1 gives a partition
of P and Lemma 2 shows that there is a monotonic subsequence of length bigger than n or all
are squares. This is a statement of Theorem 2.
Proofs of Lemma 1 and Lemma 2 are on the page of 'Literka' Proofs of Lemmas.
There is an applet of 'Literka', which is a demonstration of a proof of Lemma 1
(only for the case of intervals of equal lengths).
Let us mention here about further extensions of the theorem of Erdos. We can investigate monotonic sequences in
. Then we define that a sequence is monotonic if corresponding sequences of each coordinate are monotonic sequences. It appears that similar theorems to the 1-dimensional case can be formulated. The same is for any n-dimensional space.
There is another way of defining monotonic sequence of the space
(Notice: we use the same word "monotonic" for different definitions of this word):
Let M be a sequence of vectors of .
For any vector x of
we can create a sequence of real numbers taking scalar products of M with a vector x.
If for even one non-zero vector x a sequence created this way is monotonic, then we call a sequence M monotonic.
This is still an open field. Some partial results were
achieved by A. Odlyzko, J. Shearer, and R. Siders ( see
Monotonic subsequences in dimensions higher than one
).
They showed, for example, that in any dimension n, for any large
collection of k points,
there will be a monotonic subsequence of length about equal
to the square root of k.