An amusing problem about quadruples of real numbers (Q750486)

For a vector \(v=(v_ 1,v_ 2,v_ 3,v_ 4)\in R^ 4\) put \(H(v)=(| v_ 1-v_ 2|,| v_ 2-v_ 3|,| v_ 3-v_ 4|,| v_ 4-v_ 1|)\) and \(m(v)=\min (k\geq 0,\quad H^ k(v)=0).\) A formula for m(v) is stated in Theorem 1. This is the solution of an extension of a problem from ``The U.S.S.R. Olympiade problem book''.