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Algebra Difficulty 4.4 AIME Prove it Saudi Arabia

Find all functions f:RRf: \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R} that satisfy
f(x+y2f(y))=f(x) f\left(x+y^{2}-f(y)\right)=f(x)
for all x,yRx, y \in \mathbb{R}.

Solution

Notice that the function ff, defined by f(x)=x2f(x)=x^{2} for all xRx \in \mathbb{R}, is a solution of the equation.

Assume that there exists aRa \in \mathbb{R} such that f(a)a2f(a) \neq a^{2} and let b=a2f(a)0b=a^{2}-f(a) \neq 0. Then for all xRx \in \mathbb{R} we have f(x+b)=f(x)f(x+b)=f(x). Therefore, for all x,yRx, y \in \mathbb{R}, let z=yxb22bz=\frac{y-x-b^{2}}{2b} we have
f(x)=f(x+(z+b)2f(z+b))=f(x+2bz+b2+z2f(z))=f(x+2bz+b2)=f(y) \begin{aligned} f(x) & =f\left(x+(z+b)^{2}-f(z+b)\right)=f\left(x+2bz+b^{2}+z^{2}-f(z)\right) \\ & =f\left(x+2bz+b^{2}\right)=f(y) \end{aligned}
We deduce that ff is constant. Conversely, any constant function satisfies the given functional equation.

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