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Indian National Mathematical Olympiad

Algebra Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it India

Problem:
Find all real functions ff from R→R\mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R} satisfying the relation
f(x2+yf(x))=xf(x+y) f\left(x^{2}+y f(x)\right)=x f(x+y)

Solution

Solution:
Put x=0x=0 and we get f(yf(0))=0f(y f(0))=0. If f(0)≠0f(0) \neq 0, then yf(0)y f(0) takes all real values when yy varies over real line. We get f(x)≡0f(x) \equiv 0. Suppose f(0)=0f(0)=0. Taking y=−xy=-x, we get f(x2−xf(x))=0f\left(x^{2}-x f(x)\right)=0 for all real xx.

Suppose there exists x0≠0x_{0} \neq 0 in R\mathbb{R} such that f(x0)=0f\left(x_{0}\right)=0. Putting x=x0x=x_{0} in the given relation we get
f(x02)=x0f(x0+y) f\left(x_{0}^{2}\right)=x_{0} f\left(x_{0}+y\right)
for all y∈Ry \in \mathbb{R}. Now the left side is a constant and hence it follows that ff is a constant function. But the only constant function which satisfies the equation is identically zero function, which is already obtained. Hence we may consider the case where f(x)≠0f(x) \neq 0 for all x≠0x \neq 0.

Since f(x2−xf(x))=0f\left(x^{2}-x f(x)\right)=0, we conclude that x2−xf(x)=0x^{2}-x f(x)=0 for all x≠0x \neq 0. This implies that f(x)=xf(x)=x for all x≠0x \neq 0. Since f(0)=0f(0)=0, we conclude that f(x)=xf(x)=x for all x∈Rx \in \mathbb{R}.
Thus we have two functions: f(x)≡0f(x) \equiv 0 and f(x)=xf(x)=x for all x∈Rx \in \mathbb{R}.

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