Suppose , and . Prove that
and describe the cases of equality.
Solutions — 2
Solution 1
By hypothesis, , , , and so . Also, , i.e., , equivalently,
whence
and there is equality iff and or . This means that we have equality iff is one of , , and .
Solution 2
Using the AM-GM inequality and the assumption , we obtain
Multiplying these inequalities gives and so
where we have used . Using AM-GM again, we obtain
For the case of equality it is necessary that and or . If , the first three inequalities above have no term equal to zero, hence all of them must be equalities, hence and . This implies contradicting . Hence equality implies . Therefore, , , can only have the values or . As , at most one of them is and we have equality iff is one of , , and .
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.