Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Find the answer Italy

Problem:

Given a real number xx, the symbol x\lfloor x\rfloor denotes its integer part (that is, the greatest integer less than or equal to xx) and {x}\{x\} its fractional part (that is, xxx-\lfloor x\rfloor). Let xx, yy, zz be three positive real numbers satisfying the following system:

{3x{y}+{z}=20,33y+5z{x}=15,1{y}+{z}=0,9 \left\{\begin{array}{l} 3\lfloor x\rfloor-\{y\}+\{z\}=20,3 \\ 3\lfloor y\rfloor+5\lfloor z\rfloor-\{x\}=15,1 \\ \{y\}+\{z\}=0,9 \end{array}\right.

What is x+y+zx+y+z?

Pick one

Solution

Solution:

The answer is (D). Let us start from the first equation of the system: we have 19<20,3+{y}{z}<2219 < 20,3 + \{y\} - \{z\} < 22, so the value of 3x3\lfloor x\rfloor, which is an integer multiple of 33, must necessarily be 2121, from which x=7\lfloor x\rfloor = 7.

Let us now consider the second equation: since 15<3y+5z=15,1+{x}<1715 < 3\lfloor y\rfloor + 5\lfloor z\rfloor = 15,1 + \{x\} < 17 we obtain 15,1+{x}=1615,1 + \{x\} = 16, since 3y+5z3\lfloor y\rfloor + 5\lfloor z\rfloor is an integer, from which {x}=0,9\{x\} = 0,9.

Again from the equality 3y+5z=163\lfloor y\rfloor + 5\lfloor z\rfloor = 16 we can deduce that z<4\lfloor z\rfloor < 4. However for z=0,1,3\lfloor z\rfloor = 0, 1, 3 the value 3y=165z3\lfloor y\rfloor = 16 - 5\lfloor z\rfloor does not turn out to be a multiple of three, hence necessarily z=2\lfloor z\rfloor = 2 from which y=165z3=2\lfloor y\rfloor = \frac{16 - 5\lfloor z\rfloor}{3} = 2.

We can then conclude that
x+y+z=x+y+z+{x}+{y}+{z}=7+2+2+0,9+0,9=12,8. x + y + z = \lfloor x\rfloor + \lfloor y\rfloor + \lfloor z\rfloor + \{x\} + \{y\} + \{z\} = 7 + 2 + 2 + 0,9 + 0,9 = 12,8 \text{.}

One final remark: combining the third equation with the relation {y}{z}=0,7\{y\} - \{z\} = 0,7 derived from the first equation, it is possible to obtain {y}=0,8\{y\} = 0,8 from which {z}=0,1\{z\} = 0,1, but this information is not necessary to compute the sum of the three numbers.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from it; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.