Extend a finite coloring of the positive integers to a point of a two-sided full shift. A minimal subsystem of its forward orbit closure, together with the proximal-minimal existence theorem, supplies a minimal point proximal to . Put . If all sums in , the augmented finite-sums set, have color in , their coordinate constraints define a cylinder set containing . The joint return lemma for a proximal minimal pair chooses a new positive term so that all new sums have color in both and . Mathematical induction gives an infinite monochromatic finite-sums set. The new term can exceed the sum of all previous terms, giving unique representations. The proximal-minimal existence theorem is a substantive input to this proof.
The dynamical proof of Hindman's theorem gives the following result. The Hindman theorem asserts that every finite coloring of the positive integers admits an infinite strictly increasing sequence for which all nonempty finite sums of distinct terms have one color. We will in fact arrange , so all these sums also have unique representations.
Extend the given coloring arbitrarily to a point , retaining the prescribed colors at every positive coordinate. Let be its forward orbit closure under the left shift. The product topology makes a compact metric space, and the left shift is a continuous map. There is a nonempty minimal subsystem : order the nonempty closed forward-invariant subsets by reverse inclusion, use compactness and the finite intersection property to intersect any chain, and apply the Zorn lemma. Minimality also implies . The result permitted in the question now supplies a minimal point proximal to .
We need the joint return lemma for a proximal minimal pair, which we prove here. It suffices to consider an open neighborhood of in . Choose an open neighborhood of with . Every forward orbit in meets , and a finite subcover of on supplies a bound on the needed return index. For a compatible metric , choose smaller than the distance from to when the latter is nonempty. By uniform continuity of the finitely many maps , , some ensures
Proximality supplies arbitrarily large with . To see that the times can be large under the definition using an infimum over , either , in which case this is automatic, or injectivity of the left shift makes every finite collection of distances strictly positive, so a sufficiently smaller proximal distance occurs beyond that collection. Some has . Then also. Hence arbitrarily large positive satisfy
This uses the minimal point property for bounded returns and proximality for closeness; closeness alone would not guarantee a return near .
Put . Inductively, let , where denotes the finite-sums set, and maintain
The initial condition at is just ; no condition on is required. The cylinder set is a neighborhood of . Use the proved joint return lemma to choose with both and in . All new sums belong to , and the old sums remain in , so both inductive conditions persist. Every nonzero sum is positive, where agrees with the original coloring. Therefore
This proves the Hindman theorem using only the permitted proximal-minimal existence result and the compactness and return arguments supplied above.