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Algebra Difficulty 6.3 National Olympiad Prove it New Zealand

Problem:

Suppose that x1,x2,x3,,xnx_{1}, x_{2}, x_{3}, \ldots, x_{n} are real numbers between 00 and 11 with sum ss. Prove that

i=1nxis+1xi+i=1n(1xi)1. \sum_{i = 1}^{n} \frac{x_{i}}{s + 1 - x_{i}} + \prod_{i = 1}^{n}(1 - x_{i}) \leq 1.

Solution

Solution:

Let ii be arbitrary and consider the set A={a1,a2,,an}A = \{a_{1}, a_{2}, \ldots, a_{n}\} defined by ai=s+1xia_{i} = s + 1 - x_{i} and let aj=1xja_{j} = 1 - x_{j} for all jij \neq i. For example, if i=2i = 2 then AA would be {1x1,s+1x2,1x3,,1xn}\{1 - x_{1}, s + 1 - x_{2}, 1 - x_{3}, \ldots, 1 - x_{n}\}. The AM-GM inequality on AA tells us

1=(s+1xi)+ji(1xj)n((1+sxi)ji(1xj))1n 1 = \frac{(s + 1 - x_{i}) + \sum_{j \neq i}(1 - x_{j})}{n} \geq \left((1 + s - x_{i}) \prod_{j \neq i}(1 - x_{j})\right)^{\frac{1}{n}}

Which rearranges to give us

1(s+1xi)ji(1xj)0. 1 - (s + 1 - x_{i}) \prod_{j \neq i}(1 - x_{j}) \geq 0.

From here we can multiply both sides by (1xi)(1 - x_{i}), then add ss to both sides and factorise the LHS to get:

(s+1xi)(1j=1n(1xj))s. (s + 1 - x_{i})\left(1 - \prod_{j = 1}^{n}(1 - x_{j})\right) \geq s.

Now multiply both sides by xis(s+1xi)\frac{x_{i}}{s(s + 1 - x_{i})} to get the following equation.

(1j=1n(1xj))xisxis+1xi(1) \left(1 - \prod_{j = 1}^{n}(1 - x_{j})\right) \frac{x_{i}}{s} \geq \frac{x_{i}}{s + 1 - x_{i}} \quad (1)

Note that this equation holds for all ii. Now consider the sum of Equation 1 over all 1in1 \leq i \leq n. Since (1(1xj))(1 - \prod (1 - x_{j})) is constant and xis=1\sum \frac{x_{i}}{s} = 1, the sum of all the LHS equals (1(1xj))\left(1 - \prod (1 - x_{j})\right). So we get

1j=1n(1xj)i=1nxis+1xi 1 - \prod_{j = 1}^{n}(1 - x_{j}) \geq \sum_{i = 1}^{n} \frac{x_{i}}{s + 1 - x_{i}}

as required.

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