Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Prove it India

Problem:
Find all real numbers xx such that

[x2+2x]=[x]2+2[x] \left[x^{2}+2x\right] = [x]^{2} + 2[x]

(Here [x][x] denotes the largest integer not exceeding xx.)

Solution

Solution:
Adding 11 to both sides, the equation reduces to

[(x+1)2]=([x+1])2 \left[(x+1)^{2}\right] = ([x+1])^{2}

We have used [x]+m=[x+m][x] + m = [x + m] for every integer mm.

Suppose x+10x+1 \leq 0. Then [x+1]x+10[x+1] \leq x+1 \leq 0. Thus

([x+1])2(x+1)2[(x+1)2]=([x+1])2 ([x+1])^{2} \geq (x+1)^{2} \geq \left[(x+1)^{2}\right] = ([x+1])^{2}

Thus equality holds everywhere. This gives [x+1]=x+1[x+1] = x+1 and thus x+1x+1 is an integer. Using x+10x+1 \leq 0, we conclude that

x{1,2,3,} x \in \{-1, -2, -3, \ldots\}

Suppose x+1>0x+1 > 0. We have

(x+1)2[(x+1)2]=([x+1])2 (x+1)^{2} \geq \left[(x+1)^{2}\right] = ([x+1])^{2}

Moreover, we also have

(x+1)21+[(x+1)2]=1+([x+1])2 (x+1)^{2} \leq 1 + \left[(x+1)^{2}\right] = 1 + ([x+1])^{2}

Thus we obtain

[x]+1=[x+1](x+1)<1+([x+1])2=1+([x]+1)2 [x] + 1 = [x+1] \leq (x+1) < \sqrt{1 + ([x+1])^{2}} = \sqrt{1 + ([x] + 1)^{2}}

This shows that

x[n,1+(n+1)21) x \in \left[n, \sqrt{1 + (n+1)^{2}} - 1\right)

where n1n \geq -1 is an integer. Thus the solution set is

{1,2,3,}{n=1[n,1+(n+1)21)} \{-1, -2, -3, \ldots\} \cup \left\{\bigcup_{n=-1}^{\infty} \left[n, \sqrt{1 + (n+1)^{2}} - 1\right)\right\}

It is easy to verify that all the real numbers in this set indeed satisfy the given equation.

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