Problem:
Suppose are real numbers such that , , and . Prove that
(Note: is called the absolute value of and is defined as follows. If then ; and if then . For example, , and .)
Problem:
Suppose are real numbers such that , , and . Prove that
(Note: is called the absolute value of and is defined as follows. If then ; and if then . For example, , and .)
Solution:
The inequality gives . On the other hand, adding up the other two given inequalities yields , resulting in . Since or , we have in any case that
Similarly
Now adding these three inequalities and dividing by 3 yields the desired inequality.
Alt Solution 1:
The previous solution used the symmetry of , and . We can also use that symmetry to assume without loss of generality that .
If and are both negative, then so is , which contradicts the given information. So there can be at most one negative value among the three, which with our ordering must be .
In the case where , and are all positive or , then the positive (or zero) number is greater than or equal to .
Otherwise, since we have assumed that is the least of the three, is negative while and are not. Then since tells us that . On the other hand since the average of three numbers is less than or equal to the greatest of the numbers. By transitivity we have .
Alt Solution 2:
The case where , and are all positive or zero can be handled as before. For the case where and , .