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Algebra Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Prove it Ukraine

Numbers aa, bb, cc satisfy the conditions:
a+ca+1=b,c+bc+1=a,b+ab+1=c. \frac{a+c}{a+1} = b, \quad \frac{c+b}{c+1} = a, \quad \frac{b+a}{b+1} = c.

What values can the expression (a+1)(b+1)(c+1)(a+1)(b+1)(c+1) take?

Solution

Let us subtract 11 from the left and right parts of each equality and obtain:

b1=a+ca+11=a+ca1a+1=c1a+1, b - 1 = \frac{a+c}{a+1} - 1 = \frac{a+c - a - 1}{a+1} = \frac{c-1}{a+1},

and analogously from the other two equalities. Because of the conditions of existence of expressions, none of the variables equals 1-1, so we can multiply these equalities by the corresponding denominator:
(b1)(a+1)=c1, (b-1)(a+1) = c-1,

and similarly for the other variables. Then we multiply all the equalities:
(a1)(a+1)(b1)(b+1)(c1)(c+1)=(a1)(b1)(c1). (a-1)(a+1)(b-1)(b+1)(c-1)(c+1) = (a-1)(b-1)(c-1).

If, e.g., c=1c=1, we immediately get that b=1b=1, hence a=1a=1. In this case (a+1)(b+1)(c+1)=8(a+1)(b+1)(c+1)=8. If none of the variables is equal to 11, then we can divide by (a1)(b1)(c1)(a-1)(b-1)(c-1), and therefore obtain (a+1)(b+1)(c+1)=1(a+1)(b+1)(c+1)=1. Note that the value is 11 when a=b=c=0a=b=c=0, and it is 88 for a=b=c=1a=b=c=1.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.