Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 6.0 AIME, harder Prove it New Zealand

Problem:
Find all real numbers xx such that 1<x2-1 < x \leq 2 and
2x+2+2x=x4+1x2+1+x+3x+1. \sqrt{2 - x} + \sqrt{2 + 2x} = \sqrt{\frac{x^{4} + 1}{x^{2} + 1}} + \frac{x + 3}{x + 1}.

Solution

Solution:
Notice that we are solving for xx in the domain 1<x2-1 < x \leq 2. Using Cauchy-Schwarz Inequality on the left hand side, one has
2x+2+2x=12(42x)+2+2x(12+1)(2+2x+42x)=3. \sqrt{2 - x} + \sqrt{2 + 2x} = \sqrt{\frac{1}{2} \cdot (4 - 2x) + \sqrt{2 + 2x}} \leq \sqrt{\left(\frac{1}{2} + 1\right)(2 + 2x + 4 - 2x)} = 3.
Using the fact that x4+12x2x^{4} + 1 \geq 2x^{2} (because (x21)20(x^{2} - 1)^{2} \geq 0) and x2+12xx^{2} + 1 \geq 2x (because (x1)20(x - 1)^{2} \geq 0) we can get:
2(x4+1)(x2+1)2(x2+1)(x+1)22. 2(x^{4} + 1) \geq (x^{2} + 1)^{2} \geq (x^{2} + 1) \frac{(x + 1)^{2}}{2}.
If we substitute this into the right-hand side we get
x4+1x2+1+x+3x+1x+12+2x+1+1. \sqrt{\frac{x^{4} + 1}{x^{2} + 1}} + \frac{x + 3}{x + 1} \geq \frac{x + 1}{2} + \frac{2}{x + 1} + 1.
Finally applying the AM-GM again for 2 positive numbers x+12\frac{x + 1}{2} and 2x+1\frac{2}{x + 1} we obtain x+12+2x+12\frac{x + 1}{2} + \frac{2}{x + 1} \geq 2. Thus the right-hand side is 3\geq 3.

Therefore, we can see that equality must occur in our AM-GM inequality and hence, x+12=2x+1x=1\frac{x + 1}{2} = \frac{2}{x + 1} \Rightarrow x = 1.

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