# Need to prove that there is a continuous sequence which contains 100 cup of coffee , i.e. a man drinks one cup of coffee at the day.

A man can drink at least one cup of coffee at the day. After one year he drinks 500 cup of coffee. Need to prove that there is a continuous sequence which contains 100 cup of coffee, i.e. a man drinks one cup of coffee at the day. I suppose that the task somehow is connected with the finding of the monotone paths.

• If he can drink one cup of coffee per day, how is that after a year he drinks more than $366$ cups of coffee? There must be something wrong. – Crostul Jul 20 '16 at 7:21
• Presumably this is a sequence of $365$ positive integers $X_i$, with $\displaystyle S_j=\sum_{i=1}^j X_i$ where $S_0=0$ and $S_{365}=500$ and you want to show that there must exist $j,k$ with $S_j-S_k=100$ – Henry Jul 20 '16 at 7:25
• At least one cup of coffee. – Վարդան Գրիգորյան Jul 20 '16 at 7:26
• Henry- Yes thats it, how can it be done ? – Վարդան Գրիգորյան Jul 20 '16 at 7:27
• – Henry Jul 20 '16 at 7:38

If the number of cups of coffee drunk on the $i$th day is $X_i$ and $\displaystyle S_j=\sum_{i=1}^j X_i$ then $S_0=0$ and $S_{365}=500$.
Now consider the set $\{S_0,S_1,S_2,\ldots,S_{365}\}\cup\{S_0+100,S_1+100,S_2+100,\ldots,S_{365}+100\}$
The union has at most $601$ distinct elements even though each of the two subsets has $366$ distinct elements and $601<2×366$ so there must be a duplicate pair by the pigeonhole principle
As the elements in the first subset are all distinct, as are those in the second half, a duplicate pair must have one term of the form $S_j$ and the other of the form $S_k+100$, in which case $S_j-S_k=100$ and so $100$ cups were drunk from the $k+1$th day through to the $j$th day
• It would be better to say that the union has at least $730$ elements since we need to know that there are at least $601$ elements (the smallest number is at least $1$ since he drinks at least one cup of coffee a day) in the union in order to draw the desired conclusion. – N. F. Taussig Jul 20 '16 at 9:09
• @N.F.Taussig: Or perhaps say that the union has at most $601$ distinct elements even though each of the two subsets has $366$ distinct elements and $601 \lt 2 \times 366$ – Henry Jul 20 '16 at 18:34
• I like the formulation in your comment more than the one in your original answer since "potentially up to $732$ elements" could be less than $600$. – N. F. Taussig Jul 20 '16 at 18:44