Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.0 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Find all functions f:ZZf: \mathbb{Z} \rightarrow \mathbb{Z} from the integers to the integers satisfying
f(m+f(n))f(m)=n f(m+f(n))-f(m)=n
for all integers m,nZm, n \in \mathbb{Z}.

Solution

Solution:
Adding f(m)f(m) to both sides, we get f(m+f(n))=n+f(m)f(m+f(n))=n+f(m). Swapping mm and nn gives m+f(n)=f(n+f(m))=f(f(m+f(n)))m+f(n)=f(n+f(m))=f(f(m+f(n))). By fixing nn and varying mm, we can get m+f(n)m+f(n) to be any integer xx. Thus, x=f(f(x))x=f(f(x)).
Plugging in 11 for mm and f(x)f(x) for nn to the original equation then gives f(x)+f(1)=f(1+f(f(x)))=f(1+x)f(x)+f(1)=f(1+f(f(x)))=f(1+x), so f(x)f(x) is linear, of the form cxc x for some constant cc.

Plugging in 00 for mm then gives n=f(f(n))f(0)=c2nn=f(f(n))-f(0)=c^{2} n, so c2=±1c^{2}= \pm 1. It is easily seen that both f(x)=xf(x)=x and f(x)=xf(x)=-x indeed work.

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