Problem

Source: 2008 Bulgarian Autumn Math Competition, Problem 11.1

Tags: Arithmetic Progression, algebra



Let $a_{1},a_{2},\ldots$ be an infinite arithmetic progression. It's known that there exist positive integers $p,q,t$ such that $a_{p}+tp=a_{q}+tq$. If $a_{t}=t$ and the sum of the first $t$ numbers in the sequence is $18$, determine $a_{2008}$.