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Algebra Difficulty 4.5 AIME Prove it India

Problem:
If a,b,ca, b, c are positive real numbers such that abc=1a b c = 1, prove that
ab+cbc+aca+b1 a^{b+c} b^{c+a} c^{a+b} \leq 1

Solution

Solution:
Note that the inequality is symmetric in a,b,ca, b, c so that we may assume that abca \geq b \geq c. Since abc=1a b c = 1, it follows that a1a \geq 1 and c1c \leq 1. Using b=1/(ac)b = 1 / (a c), we get
ab+cbc+aca+b=ab+cca+bac+acc+a=cbcaab1 a^{b+c} b^{c+a} c^{a+b} = \frac{a^{b+c} c^{a+b}}{a^{c+a} c^{c+a}} = \frac{c^{b-c}}{a^{a-b}} \leq 1
because c1c \leq 1, bcb \geq c, a1a \geq 1 and aba \geq b.

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