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Saudi Arabian Mathematical Competitions

Algebra Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it Saudi Arabia

Find all triples (x,y,z)(x, y, z) of real numbers such that
x2+y2+z2+1=xy+yz+zx+∣x−2y+z∣. x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}+1=xy+yz+zx+|x-2y+z| .

Solution

We can write
x2+y2+z2+1=xy+yz+zx+∣x−y+z−y∣ x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}+1=xy+yz+zx+|x-y+z-y|
hence
(x−y)2+(y−z)2+(z−x)2+2=2∣x−y+z−y∣. (x-y)^{2}+(y-z)^{2}+(z-x)^{2}+2=2|x-y+z-y| .
It follows
(x−y)2+(y−z)2+(z−x)2+2≤2∣x−y∣+2∣y−z∣. (x-y)^{2}+(y-z)^{2}+(z-x)^{2}+2 \leq 2|x-y|+2|y-z| .
The last relation is equivalent to
(∣x−y∣−1)2+(∣y−z∣−1)2+(z−x)2≤0. (|x-y|-1)^{2}+(|y-z|-1)^{2}+(z-x)^{2} \leq 0 .
We get ∣x−y∣=1|x-y|=1, ∣y−z∣=1|y-z|=1 and x=zx=z. The desired triples (x,y,z)(x, y, z) are (a,a−1,a)(a, a-1, a), (a,a+1,a)(a, a+1, a), where a∈Ra \in \mathbb{R}.

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