Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it Romania

Find all real numbers aa and bb so that the equality
ax+by+bx+ay=(a+b)x+y \lfloor a x + b y \rfloor + \lfloor b x + a y \rfloor = (a + b) \lfloor x + y \rfloor
is true for every real numbers xx and yy.

Solution

Plugging y=xy = -x and d=abd = a - b yields dx+dx=0\lfloor d x \rfloor + \lfloor -d x \rfloor = 0, for every xRx \in \mathbb{R}. (*)
If d0d \neq 0, then (*) is false for x=1/(2d)x = 1/(2d), hence d=0d = 0. Then x+y=1x + y = 1 leads to 2a=2a2\lfloor a \rfloor = 2a, therefore aa is an integer.
If a=0a = 0 the relation is fulfilled, therefore a solution is a=b=0a = b = 0.

If a0a \neq 0, relation 2ax+y=2a(x+y)2a(x+y)2a\lfloor x + y \rfloor = 2\lfloor a(x + y) \rfloor \le 2a(x + y) with x+y=1/2x + y = 1/2 leads to a0a \ge 0, therefore a1a \ge 1. Now x+y=1/ax + y = 1/a gives 1=a1/a1 = a \lfloor 1/a \rfloor, whence a=b=1a = b = 1, which is the second solution.

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