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Algebra Difficulty 7.3 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it

Example 5.1.7. Let 1<x1<x2<<xn<1-1 < x_{1} < x_{2} < \ldots < x_{n} < 1 and y1<y2<<yny_{1} < y_{2} < \ldots < y_{n} be real numbers such that x1+x2++xn=x113+x213++xn13x_{1} + x_{2} + \ldots + x_{n} = x_{1}^{13} + x_{2}^{13} + \ldots + x_{n}^{13}. Prove that
x113y1+x213y2++xn13yn<x1y1+x2y2++xnynx_{1}^{13} y_{1} + x_{2}^{13} y_{2} + \ldots + x_{n}^{13} y_{n} < x_{1} y_{1} + x_{2} y_{2} + \ldots + x_{n} y_{n}

Solution

Solution. According to Abel formula, we note that
i=1nyi(xi13xi)=(y1y2)(x113x1)+(y2y3)(x113+x213x1x2)++(yn1yn)(i=1n1xi13i=1n1xi)+yn(i=1nxi13i=1nxi)\begin{aligned} \sum_{i=1}^{n} y_{i}\left(x_{i}^{13}-x_{i}\right)= & \left(y_{1}-y_{2}\right)\left(x_{1}^{13}-x_{1}\right)+\left(y_{2}-y_{3}\right)\left(x_{1}^{13}+x_{2}^{13}-x_{1}-x_{2}\right)+\ldots \\ & +\left(y_{n-1}-y_{n}\right)\left(\sum_{i=1}^{n-1} x_{i}^{13}-\sum_{i=1}^{n-1} x_{i}\right)+y_{n}\left(\sum_{i=1}^{n} x_{i}^{13}-\sum_{i=1}^{n} x_{i}\right) \end{aligned}

Since ykyk+1k{1,2,,n1}y_{k} \leq y_{k+1} \forall k \in\{1,2, \ldots, n-1\}, we only need to prove that
i=1kxi13i=1kxii=1kxi(xi121)0\sum_{i=1}^{k} x_{i}^{13} \geq \sum_{i=1}^{k} x_{i} \Leftrightarrow \sum_{i=1}^{k} x_{i}\left(x_{i}^{12}-1\right) \geq 0

Applying Abel formula again, we have
i=1kxi(xi121)=(x1x2)(x1121)+(x2x3)(x112+x2122)++(xk1xk)(i=1k1xi12k+1)+xk(i=1kxi12k)\begin{aligned} \sum_{i=1}^{k} x_{i}\left(x_{i}^{12}-1\right)= & \left(x_{1}-x_{2}\right)\left(x_{1}^{12}-1\right)+\left(x_{2}-x_{3}\right)\left(x_{1}^{12}+x_{2}^{12}-2\right)+\ldots \\ & +\left(x_{k-1}-x_{k}\right)\left(\sum_{i=1}^{k-1} x_{i}^{12}-k+1\right)+x_{k}\left(\sum_{i=1}^{k} x_{i}^{12}-k\right) \end{aligned}

Notice that xi[1,1],i{1,2,,n}x_{i} \in[-1,1], \forall i \in\{1,2, \ldots, n\} so i=1jxi12jj{1,2,,k}\sum_{i=1}^{j} x_{i}^{12} \leq j \forall j \in\{1,2, \ldots, k\}. Moreover, because x1x2xkx_{1} \leq x_{2} \leq \ldots \leq x_{k}, every term in the above sum except the last term is non-negative. If xk0x_{k} \leq 0, we are done. Otherwise, suppose that xk0x_{k} \geq 0, then xi0ik+1x_{i} \geq 0 \forall i \geq k+1. This implies (by hypothesis)
i=k+1nxi13i=k+1nxii=1kxi13i=1kxi\sum_{i=k+1}^{n} x_{i}^{13} \leq \sum_{i=k+1}^{n} x_{i} \Rightarrow \sum_{i=1}^{k} x_{i}^{13} \geq \sum_{i=1}^{k} x_{i}

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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.