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Algebra Difficulty 6.3 National Olympiad Prove it Ukraine

Given nn pairwise distinct positive numbers. Vasia wrote on the board all possible numbers of the form a+bca + \frac{b}{c}, where a,b,ca, b, c are distinct numbers from the given set. Can one always find two numbers on the board such that the larger one is not more than twice the other one, if

a) n=4n=4?

b) n=3n=3?

Solution

a) We will show that for four given numbers one can always find two numbers on the board such that one is not more than twice the other one. Suppose by contradiction, it is not true. Let the given numbers be a<b<c<da < b < c < d. Then d+ba>c+bad+ba>2(c+ba)d+ba>1d + \frac{b}{a} > c + \frac{b}{a} \Rightarrow d + \frac{b}{a} > 2(c + \frac{b}{a}) \Rightarrow d + \frac{b}{a} > 1.

On the other hand, d+bc>d+acd+bc>2(d+ac)d<bc<1d + \frac{b}{c} > d + \frac{a}{c} \Rightarrow d + \frac{b}{c} > 2(d + \frac{a}{c}) \Rightarrow d < \frac{b}{c} < 1. Thus, we get a contradiction.

b) We will give an example of three numbers for which the condition doesn't hold: a=101a = 10^{-1}, b=103b = 10^{-3} and c=109c = 10^{-9}. Then, the following numbers are written on the board:

101+10610^{-1} + 10^{6}, 101+10610^{-1} + 10^{-6}, 103+10810^{-3} + 10^{8}, 103+10810^{-3} + 10^{-8}, 109+10210^{-9} + 10^{2}, 109+10210^{-9} + 10^{-2}.

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