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Algebra Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Prove it Argentina

21 numbers are written in a row. If uu, vv, ww are three consecutive ones then v=2uwu+wv = \frac{2uw}{u+w}. The first number is 1100\frac{1}{100}, the last one is 1101\frac{1}{101}. Find the 15th number.

Solution

Write v=2uwu+wv = \frac{2uw}{u+w} as 1v=u+w2uw\frac{1}{v} = \frac{u+w}{2uw}. This gives 1v=12(1u+1w)\frac{1}{v} = \frac{1}{2} \left( \frac{1}{u} + \frac{1}{w} \right), or 1v1u=1w1v\frac{1}{v} - \frac{1}{u} = \frac{1}{w} - \frac{1}{v}. So look at the sequence of reciprocals of the given numbers: 1v1u=1w1v\frac{1}{v} - \frac{1}{u} = \frac{1}{w} - \frac{1}{v} means that consecutive reciprocals differ by the same amount which we denote by dd.

Hence the last reciprocal 11/101=101\frac{1}{1/101} = 101 can be obtained from the first one 11/100=100\frac{1}{1/100} = 100 by adding dd 20 times. Thus 101=100+20d101 = 100 + 20d, yielding d=120d = \frac{1}{20}. To obtain the 15th reciprocal we add 14d14d to the first one, 100, which gives 100+14120=100710100 + 14 \cdot \frac{1}{20} = \frac{1007}{10}. Therefore the 15th original number is 101007\frac{10}{1007}.

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