Find all functions such that
for any real numbers .
Saudi Arabian Mathematical Competitions
Solution
Denote () as the given condition.
Let . Taking in (), we get
for any . Now, by replacing by in () and using the above property (here we choose such that ), we get
or
Combining this with (), we get . It follows that and for any .
Replacing in (), we have
for any . Since , we conclude that is an even function. Now, replacing by in (1), we get
or
It follows that
From (), we get . Combine with the above equation, we get
for any real numbers . This shows that
where is a constant, which is truly a solution.
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