Problem:
Let be the set of real numbers excluding . Find all functions such that for all satisfying and , the equality
holds.
Solution
Solution:
Plugging in yields for some constant . This holds for all . If was any real number different from or , we would get , which is a contradiction. Hence, only or are possible. In the former case gives a contradiction, so for all .
Letting gives and so . Now, for all other , we can plug in instead of and to obtain (this formula now also works for ), and we can verify that this is indeed a solution:
and thus
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