Alphabeta Math
LemmaStatement: AI-adaptedProof: AI-generatedprecheck passjudge pass (z-ai/glm-5.2)verified 2026-07-26 (claude-opus-5)
How statement and proof provenance work

The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.

  • Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
  • AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
  • AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.

These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.

A strictly increasing index map satisfies nk≥k

Statement

Let n:N→N be a function, written k↦nk, and recall that n is strictly increasing when nj<nk whenever j<k (Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences, Order on the natural numbers).

  1. Consecutive comparisons suffice. If ni<nσ(i) for every i∈N, then n is strictly increasing.
  2. Growth. If n is strictly increasing then nk≥k for every k∈N.

Claim 1 is what one checks in practice when exhibiting a subsequence; claim 2 is what every later subsequence argument uses.

Facts & Assumptions

Given: A function n:N→N, written k↦nk, with σ the successor and the order of Order on the natural numbers; claim 1 is proved under the standing assumption that ni<nσ(i) for every i, and claim 2 under the standing assumption that n is strictly increasing (Sequences of reals: bounded, eventually, frequently, tails, subsequences).

[A1]

Q(k) denotes the statement: nj<nk for every j<k.

[A2]

P(k) denotes the statement: nk≥k.

[L1]

Order and successor on N: m≤p means m+i=p for some i, so 0≤m for every m because 0+m=m; and σ(k)=k+1 with σ(k)≠k, so k<σ(k) (Order on the natural numbers, Addition of natural numbers, Left identity for addition, No natural number equals its own successor).

[L2]

Discreteness: m<p if and only if σ(m)≤p (Discreteness: σ(n) is the immediate successor).

[L3]

Induction principle: if R(0) holds and R(k) implies R(σ(k)) for every k, then R(k) holds for every k∈N (The principle of mathematical induction).

[L4]

The order on N is reflexive, antisymmetric, transitive and total, and satisfies trichotomy (≤ is a linear order on N, Trichotomy of the order on N).

Proof

technique · induction
1.1baseA1L1L4

Base case for claim 1: Q(0) holds vacuously, since no j satisfies j<0; indeed 0≤j always holds, and j<0 together with 0≤j would contradict antisymmetry.

1.2ihA1

Inductive hypothesis for claim 1: fix k∈N and assume Q(k), that is nj<nk for every j<k.

1.3baseA2L1

Base case for claim 2: P(0) states n0≥0, which holds because 0≤m for every natural m.

1.4ihA2

Inductive hypothesis for claim 2: fix k∈N and assume P(k), that is k≤nk.

2.1step 1.2A1L2L4

Inductive step for claim 1: let j<σ(k). By trichotomy either k<j, or j=k, or j<k. The case k<j is impossible, since it gives σ(k)≤j by [L2], which together with j<σ(k) contradicts antisymmetry. If j=k then nj=nk<nσ(k) by the standing assumption. If j<k then nj<nk by step 1.2 and nk<nσ(k) by the standing assumption, so nj<nσ(k) by transitivity. In every admissible case nj<nσ(k), so Q(σ(k)) holds.

2.2step 1.4A2L1L2L4

Inductive step for claim 2: k<σ(k) by [L1], so strict increase gives nk<nσ(k); combined with k≤nk from step 1.4 this yields k<nσ(k), hence σ(k)≤nσ(k) by [L2], which is P(σ(k)).

3.1step 1.1step 1.3step 2.1step 2.2L3discharge-induction∎

Both inductions are complete, so by the induction principle Q(k) holds for every k, which is claim 1, and P(k) holds for every k, which is claim 2.

Remarks

  • Claim 2 is sharp: the identity map nk=k is strictly increasing with nk=k throughout, so no better bound than nk≥k holds for all strictly increasing index maps.

  • Claim 2 is exactly what makes a subsequence inherit a limit (Subsequences inherit the limit): a threshold K that works for the original sequence works unchanged for the subsequence, because nk≥k≥K whenever k≥K.

  • Nothing here is about R; both claims are about (N,≤,σ) alone. Both are proved by induction ([L3]), and that is the method, not an order property. Claim 2 needs three order facts on top of the induction: that 0 is least, which is what makes its base case n0≥0 true ([L1], step 1.3); discreteness (Discreteness: σ(n) is the immediate successor, [L2]), which upgrades k<nσ(k) to σ(k)≤nσ(k) (step 2.2); and transitivity in its mixed form, which composes k≤nk with nk<nσ(k) into k<nσ(k) ([L4], step 2.2). Claim 1 additionally uses trichotomy and antisymmetry ([L4]).

  • Of those three, neither the least element nor discreteness may be dropped. Discreteness alone is not enough: (Z,≤) is discrete in the same sense, m<p iff m+1≤p, yet k↦k−1 is strictly increasing on Z with nk<k everywhere. What Z lacks is a least element to anchor the induction. A least element alone is not enough either, which is what fails over Q: on the nonnegative rationals x↦x/2 is strictly increasing and fixes the least element 0, but x/2<x at every positive rational.

Depends on

Dependency tree · 2 levels

Sources