Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /102 of 128

Algebra Difficulty 6.3 National Olympiad Prove it Philippines

Problem:
Find all positive real numbers a,b,c1a, b, c \leq 1 such that
min{ab+1abc,bc+1abc,ac+1abc}=1aa+1bb+1cc \min \left\{\sqrt{\frac{a b+1}{a b c}}, \sqrt{\frac{b c+1}{a b c}}, \sqrt{\frac{a c+1}{a b c}}\right\}=\sqrt{\frac{1-a}{a}}+\sqrt{\frac{1-b}{b}}+\sqrt{\frac{1-c}{c}}

Solution

Solution:
Let r,s,t0r, s, t \geq 0 such that
a=11+r2, b=11+s2, c=11+t2 a=\frac{1}{1+r^{2}},\ b=\frac{1}{1+s^{2}},\ c=\frac{1}{1+t^{2}}
Also, WLOG, suppose t=min{r,s,t}t=\min \{r, s, t\}. The required equation can then be rewritten as
(1+t2){1+(1+r2)(1+s2)}=r+s+t \sqrt{\left(1+t^{2}\right)\left\{1+\left(1+r^{2}\right)\left(1+s^{2}\right)\right\}}=r+s+t
By Cauchy-Schwarz, (r+s+t)2([r+s]2+1)(1+t2)(r+s+t)^{2} \leq\left([r+s]^{2}+1\right)\left(1+t^{2}\right), and so we have
(1+r2)(1+s2)(r+s)2 \left(1+r^{2}\right)\left(1+s^{2}\right) \leq(r+s)^{2}
which is equivalent to (rs1)20(r s-1)^{2} \leq 0. Only equality is true here; hence rs=1r s=1 and all preceding inequalities become equations, and so t(r+s)=1t(r+s)= 1. Now, conversely, if rs=1r s=1 and t(r+s)=1t(r+s)=1, with t=1r+st=\frac{1}{r+s} still less than both 1r=s\frac{1}{r}=s and 1s=r\frac{1}{s}=r, the condition of the problem is still satisfied. Therefore, the solutions are
a=11+r2, b=11+1r2, c=(r+1r)21+(r+1r)2 a=\frac{1}{1+r^{2}},\ b=\frac{1}{1+\frac{1}{r^{2}}},\ c=\frac{\left(r+\frac{1}{r}\right)^{2}}{1+\left(r+\frac{1}{r}\right)^{2}}
and permutations of these.

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.