Floor function

The greatest integer function, also known as the floor function, gives the greatest integer less than or equal to its argument. The floor of is usually denoted by or . The action of this function is

the same as "rounding down." On a positive argument, this function is the same as "dropping everything after the decimal point," but this is not true for negative values.

Properties

Hermite's Identity: for all real .

Examples

A useful way to use the floor function is to write , where y is an integer and k is the

leftover stuff after the decimal point. This can greatly simplify many problems.

Alternate Definition
Another common definition of the floor function is

where

is the fractional part of

Olympiad Problems

[1981 USAMO #5] If is a positive real number, and where is a positive integer, prove that

denotes the greatest integer less than or

equal to . AoPS discussion 1 AoPS discussion 2

[1968 IMO #6] Let exceeding . If

denote the integer part of

, i.e., the greatest integer not the sum

is a positive integer, express as a simple function of

See Also