TITLE: Showing a set is countable or not.
QUESTION [12 upvotes]: Let $A=\{x\in\mathbb{R}:\forall n\in\mathbb{Z}^+,\lfloor x^n \rfloor \text{ is odd} \}$
where $\lfloor x \rfloor$ is the largest integer equal or less than $x$.
Is $A$ countable?

REPLY [6 votes]: The answer is NO. Indeed, I show 
below that you can find a subset of $A$ paramatrized by an infinite binary
tree with $2^{\aleph_0}$ nodes.
Definition Say that a finite (or infinite) sequence 
of odd integers $(a_1,a_2,a_3,\ldots,a_n)$ (or $(a_i)_{i\geq 1}$) is good if 
$a_1 \geq 5$,  $a_i^{\frac{i+1}{i}} \leq a_{i+1} \leq a_{i+1}+1
\leq (a_i+1)^{\frac{i+1}{i}}$ for every $i$ between $1$ and $n-1$
(or every $i$ if the sequence is infinite).
Lemma 1. If $(a_i)$ is good, then $a_i \geq 5^i$ for every $i$.
Proof of lemma 1. Use induction on $i$ and  $a_i^{\frac{i+1}{i}} \leq a_{i+1}$.
Lemma 2. If $(a_i)$ is good, then $(a_i+1)^{\frac{i+1}{i}}-a_i^{\frac{i+1}{i}}
\geq 5$ for every $i$.
Proof of lemma 2. Let $f(x)=(x+1)^{\frac{i+1}{i}}-x^{\frac{i+1}{i}}$ for $x>0$. Then
$f’(x)=\frac{i+1}{i}\big((x+1)^{\frac{1}{i}}-x^{\frac{1}{i}}\big)$ so
$f$ is increasing. Thanks to lemma 1, it will suffice to show
that $f(5^i)\geq 5$, which follows easily from Bernoulli’s inequality.
Lemma 3. If a finite sequence $(a_i)_{1\leq i\leq n}$ is good, then there
are least two good sequences of length $n+1$ that extend it.
Proof of lemma 3. Consider the interval $I=[a_n^{\frac{n+1}{n}},(a_n+1)^{\frac{n+1}{n}}]$. By the preceding lemma
it has length at least $5$, so there are at least two odd integers $j$ such that
the interval $[j;j+1]$ is contained in $I$.
Lemma 4. There are uncountably many infinite good sequences.
Proof of lemma 4. Iterate the preceding lemma a countable number of times,
and starting from the good sequence $(5)$ we built an infinite binary tree,
that will contain $2^{\aleph_0}$ nodes.
Finally, if $a=(a_i)_{i\geq 1}$ is an infinite good sequence, by construction
the sequences $u_i=a_i^{\frac{1}{i}}$ and $v_i=(a_i+1)^{\frac{1}{i}}$ are
“adjacent” : $(u_i)$ is nondecreasing, $(v_i)$ is nonincreasing, and $u_i \leq v_i$
for every $i$. Then, we will have a real number $x_a \in A$ such that
$u_i \leq x_a \leq v_i$ for every $i$.
Now, we have $x_a\neq x_b$ if the sequences $a$ and $b$ are different. Indeed,
if $i$ is the smallest index such that $a_i \neq b_i$, then the intervals
$I_a=[a_i,a_{i}+1]$ and $I_b=[b_i,b_{i}+1]$ are disjoint, the first contains
$x_a^i$ and the other contains $x_b^i$.
So $A$ is uncountable.
UPDATE The axiom of choice can be avoided in the construction, as follows. There 
are two places where the axiom of choice seems to be needed :
1) In the construction of the binary tree, at each step we must choose two
new possible values for $a_{n+1}$. To fix this, take the smallest two possible
values each time.
2) In the definition of the injective map $a\mapsto x_a$, we must choose
a value $x_a$ in the interval $[{\sf sup}(u_i),{\sf inf}(u_i)]$. To fix this,
simply set $x_a={\sf sup}(u_i)$.