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Algebra Difficulty 6.1 National Olympiad Prove it Ireland

The function g:[0,)[0,)g : [0, \infty) \to [0, \infty) satisfies the functional equation:
g(g(x))=3xx+3, for all x0. g(g(x)) = \frac{3x}{x+3}, \text{ for all } x \ge 0.
You are also told that g(x)=x+12g(x) = \frac{x+1}{2} for 2x32 \le x \le 3.

a. Find g(2021)g(2021).
b. Find g(1/2021)g(1/2021).

Solution

For part (a), we determine g(y)g(y) for any y6y \ge 6. Applying the functional equation we have:
g(g(y))=3yy+3. g(g(y)) = \frac{3y}{y+3}.
Also, as 2<3yy+3<32 < \frac{3y}{y+3} < 3 we can apply gg to each side and apply the second condition to get:
g(g(g(y)))=g(3yy+3)=12(3yy+3+1)=4y+32y+6. g(g(g(y))) = g\left(\frac{3y}{y+3}\right) = \frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{3y}{y+3} + 1\right) = \frac{4y+3}{2y+6}.
But also from the opening condition applied to g(y)g(y):
g(g(g(y)))=3g(y)g(y)+3. g(g(g(y))) = \frac{3g(y)}{g(y) + 3}.
Equating the reciprocal of these last two expressions yields:
13+1g(y)=2y+64y+3 \frac{1}{3} + \frac{1}{g(y)} = \frac{2y+6}{4y+3}
whence:
g(y)=12y+92y+15. g(y) = \frac{12y + 9}{2y + 15}.
Substituting y=2021y = 2021 gives:
g(2021)=12×2021+92×2021+15. g(2021) = \frac{12 \times 2021 + 9}{2 \times 2021 + 15}.

For part (b) we note from the second condition that g(3)=2g(3) = 2 and g(2)=3/2g(2) = 3/2. Playing around recursively, we have:
g(32)=g(g(2))=3×22+3=65g(65)=g(g(32))=3×3/23/2+3=1g(1)=g(g(65))=3×6/56/5+3=67. \begin{aligned} g\left(\frac{3}{2}\right) &= g(g(2)) = \frac{3 \times 2}{2 + 3} = \frac{6}{5} \\ g\left(\frac{6}{5}\right) &= g\left(g\left(\frac{3}{2}\right)\right) = \frac{3 \times 3/2}{3/2 + 3} = 1 \\ g(1) &= g\left(g\left(\frac{6}{5}\right)\right) = \frac{3 \times 6/5}{6/5 + 3} = \frac{6}{7}. \end{aligned}
We spot a pattern and conjecture that, for n=2,3,4,n = 2, 3, 4, \dots
g(6n)=6n+1. g\left(\frac{6}{n}\right) = \frac{6}{n+1}.
The proof is by induction; the result holds by direct computation for n=2n = 2 and n=3n = 3. For general nn, we assume the result for n1n - 1 and we have
g(6n)=g(g(6n1))=3×6/(n1)6/(n1)+3=186+3n3=6n+1. g\left(\frac{6}{n}\right) = g\left(g\left(\frac{6}{n-1}\right)\right) = \frac{3 \times 6/(n-1)}{6/(n-1) + 3} = \frac{18}{6 + 3n - 3} = \frac{6}{n+1}.
The result is now proved. Substituting n=6×2021=12126n = 6 \times 2021 = 12126 gives:
g(12021)=612127. g\left(\frac{1}{2021}\right) = \frac{6}{12127}.

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