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Algebra Difficulty 4.7 AIME Prove it Estonia

Find the value of the expression
1(12019)2+1+1(22018)2+1+1(32017)2+1++1(20182)2+1+1(20191)2+1 \frac{1}{\left(\frac{1}{2019}\right)^2 + 1} + \frac{1}{\left(\frac{2}{2018}\right)^2 + 1} + \frac{1}{\left(\frac{3}{2017}\right)^2 + 1} + \dots + \frac{1}{\left(\frac{2018}{2}\right)^2 + 1} + \frac{1}{\left(\frac{2019}{1}\right)^2 + 1}

Solution

Group the summands into pairs: the first one together with the last one, the second one together with the second last one, etc. Adding the members of each pair gives us
1(ij)2+1+1(ji)2+1=i2j2+1+j2i2+1(i2j2+1)(j2i2+1)=i2j2+j2i2+2i2j2+j2i2+2=1. \frac{1}{\left(\frac{i}{j}\right)^2 + 1} + \frac{1}{\left(\frac{j}{i}\right)^2 + 1} = \frac{\frac{i^2}{j^2} + 1 + \frac{j^2}{i^2} + 1}{\left(\frac{i^2}{j^2} + 1\right) \left(\frac{j^2}{i^2} + 1\right)} = \frac{\frac{i^2}{j^2} + \frac{j^2}{i^2} + 2}{\frac{i^2}{j^2} + \frac{j^2}{i^2} + 2} = 1.
As there are 20192019 pairs in total, the sum of all numbers in the pairs is 20192019. Since every summand occurs twice, the desired sum is 20192\frac{2019}{2}.

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