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Selection tests for the Gulf Mathematical Olympiad, 2013

Algebra Difficulty 8.0 Shortlist Prove it Saudi Arabia

Find all functions f:R→Rf: \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R} which satisfy
f(33x)=3f(x)−233xf(x)f(y)=f(xy)+f(xy) \begin{aligned} & f\left(\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3} x\right)=\sqrt{3} f(x)-\frac{2 \sqrt{3}}{3} x \\ & f(x) f(y)=f(x y)+f\left(\frac{x}{y}\right) \end{aligned}
for all x,y∈Rx, y \in \mathbb{R}, with y≠0y \neq 0.

Solution

Let f:R→Rf: \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R} be a function which satisfies the two functional equations.
Because f(33x)−3f(1)=−233≠0f\left(\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3} x\right)-\sqrt{3} f(1)=-\frac{2 \sqrt{3}}{3} \neq 0, either f(1)≠0f(1) \neq 0 or f(33x)≠0f\left(\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3} x\right) \neq 0.
Fix x0∈Rx_{0} \in \mathbb{R} with f(x0)≠0f\left(x_{0}\right) \neq 0 and let y∈Ry \in \mathbb{R} with y≠0y \neq 0. We have
f(x0)f(1y)=f(x0y)+f(x0y)=f(x0)f(y). f\left(x_{0}\right) f\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)=f\left(\frac{x_{0}}{y}\right)+f\left(x_{0} y\right)=f\left(x_{0}\right) f(y) .
Therefore, f(1y)=f(y)f\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)=f(y) for all y≠0y \neq 0.
Let x≠0x \neq 0. We have
f(33x)=3f(x)−233x=3f(3333x)−233x=3(3f(133x)−2x)−233x=3f(33x)−23x−233x \begin{aligned} f\left(\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3} x\right) & =\sqrt{3} f(x)-\frac{2 \sqrt{3}}{3} x \\ & =\sqrt{3} f\left(\frac{\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3}}{\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3} x}\right)-\frac{2 \sqrt{3}}{3} x \\ & =\sqrt{3}\left(\sqrt{3} f\left(\frac{1}{\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3} x}\right)-\frac{2}{x}\right)-\frac{2 \sqrt{3}}{3} x \\ & =3 f\left(\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3} x\right)-\frac{2 \sqrt{3}}{x}-\frac{2 \sqrt{3}}{3} x \end{aligned}
We deduce that
f(33x)=3x+33x f\left(\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3} x\right)=\frac{\sqrt{3}}{x}+\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3} x
and therefore
f(x)=x+1x f(x)=x+\frac{1}{x}
for all x≠0x \neq 0.
For x=0x=0 and y=2y=2, we have from the second functional equation
52f(0)=f(0)+f(0) \frac{5}{2} f(0)=f(0)+f(0)
which implies that f(0)=0f(0)=0. Hence
f(x)={x+1x if x≠00 otherwise  f(x)=\left\{\begin{array}{cr} x+\frac{1}{x} & \text{ if } x \neq 0 \\ 0 & \text{ otherwise } \end{array}\right.
Conversely, it is easy to check that this function satisfies the two functional equations.

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