Suppose the functions and map real numbers to real numbers. Find all pairs of functions satisfying the following condition:
Solution
All solutions satisfying the problem are , where is an arbitrary real number.
Observe that the left side of the original equation is symmetric in , so substituting gives
Subtracting this from the original equation yields
Substituting into this equation gives
Adding these two equations and rearranging gives
Since are all constants, must be a constant or a first-degree polynomial. From
we can further see that must be a polynomial of degree at most two.
Let and substitute back into the original problem to get
Substituting gives
If , then
Substituting this back into the original problem shows it does not work, a contradiction! Therefore , and hence , that is .
Substituting into
gives
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