Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /27 of 264

Algebra Difficulty 5.0 AIME, harder Prove it Romania

Find all complex numbers zz such that
z+z5i=z2i+z3i. |z| + |z - 5i| = |z - 2i| + |z - 3i|.

Solution

We notice that z2i=25(z5i)+35z25z5i+35z|z - 2i| = \left|\frac{2}{5}(z - 5i) + \frac{3}{5}z\right| \le \frac{2}{5}|z - 5i| + \frac{3}{5}|z|.

In the same way, z3i=35(z5i)+25z35z5i+25z|z - 3i| = \left|\frac{3}{5}(z - 5i) + \frac{2}{5}z\right| \le \frac{3}{5}|z - 5i| + \frac{2}{5}|z|, whence z+z5iz2i+z3i|z| + |z - 5i| \ge |z - 2i| + |z - 3i|.

Equality takes place if there exists λ0\lambda \ge 0 such that z5i=λzz - 5i = \lambda z or if z=0z = 0, i.e. z=aiz = ai, with a(,0][5,+)a \in (-\infty, 0] \cup [5, +\infty).

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

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