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Fedor Petrov
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There is no such $c$. Assume that you have a set with $n$ elements, and maximal $B$ has $k$ elements. Take two copies $C$, $D$ of $A$ with disjoint supports. Add initial segment $1,1,\dots,1$ of length $k$ to all sequences in $C$, $D$ and consider also $k$ sequences consisting of at most $k$ $1$'s. We get $2n+k$ sequences, and can not cover more than $2k$ by incomparable chains. Ratio $k/n$ tends to $0$ when we iterate this process.

It proves that in general we can not cover at most $O(n/\log n)$ elements, where $n=|A|$ (on each step, $k$ is replaced to $2k$ while $n/k$ increases by $1/2$).

I claim that we may always cover by incomparable chains about $n/\log n$ elements. Namely, if we denote by $w=w(A)$ the length of maximal chain and by $t=t(A)$ maximal number of elements in $B$ (which may be covered by incomparable chains), than $w+t\log_2t\geqslant n=|A|$. Prove by induction in $n$, base $n=1$ is clear. Assume that $n=|A|>1$ and the claim holds for sets with less than $n$ sequences. Let $u$ be the shortest sequence in $A$, $A=\{u\}\sqcup \tilde{A}$. If $u$ is initial segment of all elements of $\tilde{A}$, then $w(A)\geqslant w(\tilde{A})+1$, $t(A)\geqslant t(\tilde{A})$, induction works. If not, then partition $A=A_1\sqcup A_2$, where $A_1$ consists of sequences which start from $u$, $A_2$ of all other sequences in $A$. We have $t(A)=t(A_1)+t(A_2)$, $w(A)\geqslant \max(w(A_1),w(A_2))$. Denote $w(A_i)=w_i$, $t(A_i)=t_i$. It suffices to prove $$ \max(w_1,w_2)+(t_1+t_2)\log_2(t_1+t_2)\geqslant w_1+t_1\log_2 t_1+w_2+t_2\log_2t_2\geqslant |A|, $$ where the second inequality follows from induction proposition. But this is clear. If, say, $t_2\geqslant t_1$, we have $t_2\log_2(t_1+t_2)\geqslant t_2\log_2 t_2+t_2\geqslant t_2\log_2 t_2+w_2$.

Fedor Petrov
  • 108.9k
  • 9
  • 264
  • 459