Problem

Source: Mexico National Olympiad 2021 Problem 6

Tags: combinatorics, algebra, number theory, Mexico



Determine all non empty sets $C_1, C_2, C_3, \cdots $ such that each one of them has a finite number of elements, all their elements are positive integers, and they satisfy the following property: For any positive integers $n$ and $m$, the number of elements in the set $C_n$ plus the number of elements in the set $C_m$ equals the sum of the elements in the set $C_{m + n}$. Note: We denote $\lvert C_n \lvert$ the number of elements in the set $C_n$, and $S_k$ as the sum of the elements in the set $C_n$ so the problem's condition is that for every $n$ and $m$: \[\lvert C_n \lvert + \lvert C_m \lvert = S_{n + m}\]is satisfied.