Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 4.9 AIME Prove it United States

Problem:
Prove that if positive real numbers x,y,zx, y, z have sum 11, then
xx+yz+yy+zx+zz+xy213xyz. \frac{x}{x+yz} + \frac{y}{y+zx} + \frac{z}{z+xy} \leq \frac{2}{1-3xyz}.

Solution

Solution:
The idea is to use the identity
xx+yz=xx(x+y+z)+yz=x(x+y)(x+z)=x(y+z)(x+y)(y+z)(z+x) \frac{x}{x+yz} = \frac{x}{x(x+y+z) + yz} = \frac{x}{(x+y)(x+z)} = \frac{x(y+z)}{(x+y)(y+z)(z+x)}
So the left-hand side is exactly equal to
2(xy+yz+zx)(x+y)(y+z)(z+x)=2(xy+yz+zx)(x+y+z)(x+y)(y+z)(z+x). \frac{2(xy+yz+zx)}{(x+y)(y+z)(z+x)} = \frac{2(xy+yz+zx)(x+y+z)}{(x+y)(y+z)(z+x)}.
We let k=(xy+yz+zx)(x+y+z)k = (xy+yz+zx)(x+y+z). On the other hand, we claim that k1/3k \leq 1/3, which is sufficient. Indeed, to prove k1/3k \leq 1/3 it suffices to prove that
xy+yz+zx(x+y+z)23 xy+yz+zx \leq \frac{(x+y+z)^2}{3}
which is a direct consequence of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality.

On the other hand, the left-hand side equals, exactly,
2kkxyz=2+2xyzkxyz \frac{2k}{k-xyz} = 2 + \frac{2xyz}{k-xyz}
So simply noting k1/3k \leq 1/3 implies the desired conclusion, since this is a decreasing function of kk.

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