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Algebra Difficulty 7.4 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Bulgaria

Problem:
At any lattice point in the plane a number from the interval (0,1)(0,1) is written. It is known that for any lattice point the number written there is equal to the arithmetic mean of the numbers written at the four closest lattice points. Prove that all written numbers are equal.

Solution

Solution:
Let f(x,y)f(x, y) be the number written at the lattice point (x,y)(x, y). Then
f(x,y)=f(x+1,y)+f(x1,y)+f(x,y+1)+f(x,y1)4 f(x, y) = \frac{f(x+1, y) + f(x-1, y) + f(x, y+1) + f(x, y-1)}{4}
Assume that not all the numbers are equal. Then there are two points at distance 11 apart such that the numbers written there are different. Rotating the plane, if necessary, we may assume that f(x0+1,y0)>f(x0,y0)f(x_0+1, y_0) > f(x_0, y_0) for some x0,y0Zx_0, y_0 \in \mathbb{Z}. Set
g(x,y)=f(x+1,y)f(x,y) g(x, y) = f(x+1, y) - f(x, y)
Then M=supx,yZg(x,y)(0,1]M = \sup_{x, y \in \mathbb{Z}} g(x, y) \in (0,1] and
g(x,y)=g(x+1,y)+g(x1,y)+g(x,y+1)+g(x,y1)4 g(x, y) = \frac{g(x+1, y) + g(x-1, y) + g(x, y+1) + g(x, y-1)}{4}
In particular, if g(a,b)Mεg(a, b) \geq M - \varepsilon, where ε>0\varepsilon > 0, then
g(a+1,b)=4g(a,b)g(a1,b)g(a,b+1)g(a,b1)4(Mε)3M=M4ε \begin{aligned} g(a+1, b) &= 4g(a, b) - g(a-1, b) - g(a, b+1) - g(a, b-1) \\ &\geq 4(M-\varepsilon) - 3M = M - 4\varepsilon \end{aligned}
and we get by induction that g(a+n,b)M4nεg(a+n, b) \geq M - 4^n \varepsilon for any nNn \in \mathbb{N}.

Choose now n2Mn \geq \frac{2}{M}, ε(0,M24n1]\varepsilon \in \left(0, \frac{M}{2 \cdot 4^{n-1}}\right] and integers aa and bb such that g(a,b)Mεg(a, b) \geq M - \varepsilon. Then
1>f(a+n,b)>f(a+n,b)f(a,b)=k=0n1g(a+k,b)nM21 1 > f(a+n, b) > f(a+n, b) - f(a, b) = \sum_{k=0}^{n-1} g(a+k, b) \geq n \frac{M}{2} \geq 1
which is a contradiction.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.