TITLE: Divergent sums of reciprocals with unique factorization property
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: Let $A=\{a_n|n\in\mathbb{N}\}$ be a sequence of positive integers with the following properties:

$1<a_1<a_2<\cdots<a_n<\cdots$,

$\frac{1}{a_1}+\frac{1}{a_2}+\cdots+\frac{1}{a_n}+\cdots=\infty$.


Does there always exist a subsequence $B\subseteq A$ with $B=\{b_n|n\in\mathbb{N}\}$ such that

$\frac{1}{b_1}+\frac{1}{b_2}+\cdots+\frac{1}{b_n}+\cdots=\infty$,

All products $d_1^{m_1}\cdot d_2^{m_2}\cdots\cdot d_k^{m_k}$ are distinct (for all $k\in \mathbb{N}$), where $d_1,\dots,d_k$ are distinct elements of $B$ and $m_1,\dots,m_k$ are positive integers ?

REPLY [10 votes]: No.  Let $A$ be the sequence of semiprimes $pq$ with $p < q < p^2$.  Since the sum of reciprocals of primes between $p$ and $p^2$ approaches $\ln \ln (p^2) - \ln \ln p = \ln 2$,
$$\sum \frac1A \sim \sum_n \frac{1}{p_n} \ln 2 = \infty.$$
But any $n$ elements of $B$ whose prime factors are all at most $p_{n - 1}$ would violate the distinctness condition (because $d_1^{m_1}d_2^{m_2} \dotsm d_n^{m_n} = 1$ for $(m_1, \dotsc, m_n) \in \mathbb Z^n$ reduces to a linear system of $n - 1$ equations), so one of the first $n$ elements must be greater than $\sqrt{p_n} \cdot p_n$, and
$$\sum \frac1B < \sum_n \frac{1}{\sqrt{p_n} \cdot p_n} < \infty.$$