Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Prove it Philippines

Problem:
Find all functions f:RRf: \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R} such that
f(2f(x))=f(xf(y))+f(x)+y f(2 f(x))=f(x-f(y))+f(x)+y
for all x,yRx, y \in \mathbb{R}.

Solution

Solution:
Let P(x,y)P(x, y) be the problem statement. Note that if f(a)=f(b)f(a)=f(b) where a,bRa, b \in \mathbb{R}, then P(x,a)P(x, a) and P(x,b)P(x, b) imply a=ba=b. Thus ff is injective.

Then P(x,f(x))P(x,-f(x)) implies f(2f(x))=f(xf(f(x)))f(2 f(x))=f(x-f(-f(x))), so by injectivity we obtain f(f(x))=x2f(x)f(-f(x))=x-2 f(x).

Now P(x,0)P(x, 0) gives f(2f(x))=f(xf(0))+f(x)f(2 f(x))=f(x-f(0))+f(x). Combining this with P(x,y)P(x, y), we obtain f(xf(0))=f(xf(y))+yf(x-f(0))=f(x-f(y))+y.

Setting x=0x=0 here yields f(f(0))=f(f(y))+yf(-f(0))=f(-f(y))+y, and so f(f(0))=2yf(y)f(-f(0))=2 y-f(y). In particular, this implies f(y)=y+cf(y)=y+c for some constant cc.

Substituting this into P(x,y)P(x, y), we obtain
2x+3c=xy+x+y+c 2 x+3 c=x-y+x+y+c
which implies that c=0c=0. It is easy to see that f(x)=xf(x)=x works and is therefore the only solution.

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