Find all quadruplets of real numbers satisfying the system
Solution
Let us set
We'll show that for any real the inequality implies . After subtraction we see that
Moreover, equality occurs when or , so either way it implies .
We can rewrite the system (implicitly using the symmetry of ) to the form:
Now we can see that the system is symmetric in variables and may assume . We then write the chain of (in)equalities
and since we in fact have equality everywhere, we deduce .
All such quadruplets clearly satisfy the system so the problem is solved. □
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