Let be a polynomial with real coefficients satisfying the condition: there are infinitely many pairs of integers for which . Prove that the graph of function has a center of symmetry.
Solution
If then , and the statement of the problem is obviously true. Consider the case . Without loss of generality, we can assume that the leading coefficient of equals . If the degree of is even then for with absolute value big enough, we will have and as a consequence, we can find only finitely many pairs of integers for which , which contradicts the given condition. So, the degree of should be odd (we will use this fact further).
Now, we note that from some the polynomial strictly increases and tends to infinity when tends to infinity (if then this property holds for all , if the equation has real roots then we could choose greater than the biggest root of ). Moreover, for each integer , there exists finitely many integers for which (a polynomial can admit one value only in a finite number of points, not exceeding its degree).
With the above argument, we see that for all , there is a pair of integers such that , where and have opposite signs and have absolute values greater than .
Assume that has degree and (here denotes the lower terms). It is easy to choose a number such that the polynomial has the form , i.e., the coefficient of equals .
Indeed, so, we just need to choose . Now, we prove that the point is the center of symmetry of the graph of .
Put , we will prove that for all real .
As we know, and the equation has infinitely many solutions for which are integers. We choose the solutions with big enough absolute value with . We will prove that .
Indeed, assume that . Consider the case (other cases can be proved similarly). Then
where is a fixed polynomial of degree not greater than . If is big enough, the value of will be bigger than so the sum will be less than . When the absolute value of increases then the sum decreases (because is decreasing). So, it is not possible to have where have big enough absolute value. Similarly, we cannot have the case .
Therefore, there exist infinitely many numbers such that , i.e., the polynomial has infinitely many roots. This can occur only when this polynomial is the zero polynomial. That is, we have the identity and so, the graph of is symmetric about the point .
Therefore, the graph of has the center of symmetry at the point . We have done.