Problem

Source: Germany 2018, Problem 5

Tags: number theory, Sequence, Prime factor, primes



We define a sequence of positive integers $a_1,a_2,a_3,\dots$ as follows: Let $a_1=1$ and iteratively, for $k =2,3,\dots$ let $a_k$ be the largest prime factor of $1+a_1a_2\cdots a_{k-1}$. Show that the number $11$ is not an element of this sequence.