Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Find the answer

Find all triplets (a,b,c)(a, b, c) of strictly positive real numbers such that

{abc=abca=bcab=c \left\{\begin{array}{l} a \sqrt{b}-c=a \\ b \sqrt{c}-a=b \\ c \sqrt{a}-b=c \end{array}\right.

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

We notice that a=b=c=4\mathrm{a}=\mathrm{b}=\mathrm{c}=4 is a solution. We will show that this is in fact the only one.
If two of the three numbers are equal to 4 (say a and b), it is easily verified that the third one is also 4, because 44c=44 \sqrt{4}-\mathrm{c}=4, so c=4\mathrm{c}=4. If one of the three numbers is 4 (say a), then cab=cc \sqrt{a}-b=c becomes 2cb=c2 \mathrm{c}-\mathrm{b}=\mathrm{c}, so b=c\mathrm{b}=\mathrm{c}. Moreover, abb=4\mathrm{a} \sqrt{\mathrm{b}}-\mathrm{b}=4, which can be rewritten as (b2)2=0(\sqrt{\mathrm{b}}-2)^{2}=0, so b=4\mathrm{b}=4 and c=4\mathrm{c}=4. It remains to show that it is impossible for the three numbers to all be different from 4.

If this is the case, then either at least two of the numbers are strictly greater than 4, or at least two are strictly less than 4. We treat these two cases separately.
If at least two of the numbers are >4>4, let's say that c is the smallest of the three numbers. Then a,b>4a, b>4, so a=abc>2aca=a \sqrt{b}-c>2 a-c, so c>a>4c>a>4, which contradicts the minimality of cc. Similarly, if at least two of the numbers are <4<4, suppose that cc is the largest. Then a,b<4a, b<4, so a=abc<2aca=a \sqrt{b}-c<2 a-c, so c<ac<a, which contradicts the maximality of cc. The only solution is therefore indeed (4,4,4)(4,4,4).

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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.