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Algebra Difficulty 5.7 AIME, harder Find the answer

Find all possible values for f(2018)f(2018) where ff is a function from Q\mathbb{Q} to R+\mathbb{R}_{+} satisfying the following three conditions:

- f(2)=1/2f(2)=1 / 2
- for any rational xx, if f(x)1f(x) \leqslant 1, then f(x+1)1f(x+1) \leqslant 1;
- f(xy)=f(x)f(y)f(x y)=f(x) f(y) for all rational xx and yy.

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

Solution

First, the equality 1/2=f(2)=f(1×2)=f(1)f(2)=f(1)/21 / 2=f(2)=f(1 \times 2)=f(1) f(2)=f(1) / 2 shows that f(1)=1f(1)=1, and thus that f(n)1f(n) \leqslant 1 for any non-zero natural number nn.
Furthermore, for all x,yx, y with y0y \neq 0 we have f(y)0f(y) \neq 0, and f(x/y)=f(x)/f(y)f(x / y)=f(x) / f(y) since f(x/y)f(y)=f((x/y)y)=f(x)f(x / y) f(y)=f((x / y) y)=f(x). In particular, f(1/2)=2f(1 / 2)=2. Finally, for any rational xx, we have f(x)2=f(x2)=f(x)2f(x)^{2}=f\left(x^{2}\right)=f(-x)^{2}, so ff is even.
Let then kk be an odd natural number, of the form k=2n+1k=2 n+1: we necessarily have f(k)1f(k) \leqslant 1. We also know that f(k/2)>1f(-k / 2)>1, since 1/2=k/2+(n+1)1 / 2=-k / 2+(n+1), so f(2/k)=1/f(k/2)1f(-2 / k)=1 / f(-k / 2) \leqslant 1, which implies that f(k2k)=f(2k+1)1f\left(\frac{k-2}{k}\right)=f\left(-\frac{2}{k}+1\right) \leqslant 1, consequently f(k2)f(k)f(k-2) \leqslant f(k).
This allows us to show by induction that for any k1k \geqslant 1 odd we have f(k)1f(k) \geqslant 1, and thus f(k)=1f(k)=1.
We deduce from all this that f(2018)=f(2)f(1009)=1/2f(2018)=f(2) f(1009)=1 / 2.
Conversely, it remains to verify that a function ff as described in the statement does indeed exist. It suffices for this to observe that the function ff defined by

f:p/q{0 if p=02v2(q)v2(p) if p0 f: p / q \mapsto \begin{cases}0 & \text { if } p=0 \\ 2^{v_{2}(q)-v_{2}(p)} & \text { if } p \neq 0\end{cases}

where v2(n)v_{2}(n) denotes the 2-adic valuation of the integer nn, satisfies the conditions of the statement.

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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.