Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.8 AIME, harder Find the answer

We consider all positive real numbers a,b,c,da, b, c, d for which (a+c)(b+d)=ac+bd(a+c)(b+d)=a c+b d holds.
Determine the smallest value that S=ab+bc+cd+daS=\frac{a}{b}+\frac{b}{c}+\frac{c}{d}+\frac{d}{a} can take.

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

The smallest possible value for SS is 8.
To show that S8S \geq 8 always holds, we apply the AM-GM inequality twice:
(ab+cd)+(bc+da)2acbd+2bdac=2(ac+bd)abcd=2(a+c)(b+d)abcd22ac2bdabcd=8\left(\frac{a}{b}+\frac{c}{d}\right)+\left(\frac{b}{c}+\frac{d}{a}\right) \geq 2 \sqrt{\frac{a c}{b d}}+2 \sqrt{\frac{b d}{a c}}=\frac{2(a c+b d)}{\sqrt{a b c d}}=\frac{2(a+c)(b+d)}{\sqrt{a b c d}} \geq 2 \cdot \frac{2 \sqrt{a c} \cdot 2 \sqrt{b d}}{\sqrt{a b c d}}=8.
Equality holds at the points of the inequalities when a=ca=c and b=db=d. This allows us to rewrite (a+c)(b+d)=ac+bd(a+c)(b+d)=a c+b d as 4ab=a2+b24 a b=a^{2}+b^{2}. Solving for aa yields a=b(2±3)a=b(2 \pm \sqrt{3}), and thus a possible solution S=8S=8 for b=d=1b=d=1 and a=c=2+3a=c=2+\sqrt{3}.

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Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.