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Bulgarian Mathematical Competitions

Algebra Difficulty 6.5 National Olympiad Prove it Bulgaria

Problem:
Find all k>0k > 0 such that there is a function f:[0,1]×[0,1]→[0,1]f : [0,1] \times [0,1] \to [0,1] satisfying the following conditions:

a) f(f(x,y),z)=f(x,f(y,z))f(f(x, y), z) = f(x, f(y, z));
b) f(x,y)=f(y,x)f(x, y) = f(y, x);
c) f(x,1)=xf(x, 1) = x;
d) f(zx,zy)=zkf(x,y)f(z x, z y) = z^{k} f(x, y),

for any x,y,z∈[0,1]x, y, z \in [0,1].

Solution

Solution:
Now let x≤y≤zx \leq y \leq z, x,y,z∈(0,1)x, y, z \in (0,1). Then using (a), we get that f(xyk−1,z)=f(x,yzk−1)f\left(x y^{k-1}, z\right) = f\left(x, y z^{k-1}\right). Hence it follows from the above that
{xyk−1zk−1,xk−1y(k−1)2z}∩{xyk−1z(k−1)2,xk−1yzk−1}≠∅ \{x y^{k-1} z^{k-1}, x^{k-1} y^{(k-1)^2} z\} \cap \{x y^{k-1} z^{(k-1)^2}, x^{k-1} y z^{k-1}\} \neq \varnothing
This easily implies that either k=1k=1 and f(x,y)=min⁡{x,y}f(x, y) = \min\{x, y\} or k=2k=2 and f(x,y)=xyf(x, y) = x y. A direct verification shows that both functions are solutions for the respective kk.

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