Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /21 of 397

Algebra Difficulty 4.6 AIME Prove it Taiwan

Let a,b,ca, b, c be positive real numbers. Prove that
3(a+b+c)8abc3+a3+b3+c333 3(a + b + c) \geq 8\sqrt[3]{abc} + \sqrt[3]{\frac{a^3 + b^3 + c^3}{3}}

Solution

By the AM-GM inequality we have
8abc3+a3+b3+c33398abc+a3+b3+c3393=3a3+b3+c3+24abc3 8\sqrt[3]{abc} + \sqrt[3]{\frac{a^3 + b^3 + c^3}{3}} \le 9\sqrt[3]{\frac{8abc + \frac{a^3+b^3+c^3}{3}}{9}} = 3\sqrt[3]{a^3 + b^3 + c^3 + 24abc}
Hence it suffices to prove that
3(a+b+c)3a3+b3+c3+24abc3 3(a + b + c) \ge 3\sqrt[3]{a^3 + b^3 + c^3 + 24abc}
or
(a+b+c)3a3+b3+c3+24abc. (a + b + c)^3 \ge a^3 + b^3 + c^3 + 24abc.
Expanding the left-hand side, this is equivalent to
a2b+ab2+b2c+bc2+c2a+ca26abc, a^2b + ab^2 + b^2c + bc^2 + c^2a + ca^2 \ge 6abc,
and the above inequality is easily proved by the AM-GM inequality. Equality holds if
abc=a3+b3+c33anda2b=ab2=b2c=bc2=c2a=ca2 abc = \frac{a^3 + b^3 + c^3}{3} \quad \text{and} \quad a^2b = ab^2 = b^2c = bc^2 = c^2a = ca^2
that is, when a=b=ca = b = c.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from zh; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.