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Algebra Difficulty 4.6 AIME Prove it

Let a1,b1,a2,b2,,an,bna_1, b_1, a_2, b_2, \dots , a_n, b_n be nonnegative real numbers. Prove that
i,j=1nmin{aiaj,bibj}i,j=1nmin{aibj,ajbi}.\sum_{i, j = 1}^{n} \min\{a_ia_j, b_ib_j\} \le \sum_{i, j = 1}^{n} \min\{a_ib_j, a_jb_i\}.

Solution

Credit for this solution goes to Ravi Boppana.
Lemma 1: If r1,r2,,rnr_1, r_2, \ldots , r_n are non-negative reals and x1,x2,xnx_1, x_2, \ldots x_n are reals, then
i,jmin(ri,rj)xixj0.\sum_{i, j}\min(r_{i}, r_{j}) x_{i}x_{j}\ge 0.
Proof: Without loss of generality assume that the sequence {ri}\{r_i\} is increasing. For convenience, define r0=0r_0=0. The LHS of our inequality becomes
[ i r i x i 2 +2 i\text{[ i r i x i 2 +2 i} b_i.Similarly,wecanassumethat. Similarly, we can assume that a_j>b_j.If. If b_ib_j=0, then both sides are zero, so we may assume that b_iand and b_j are positive. We then have from the definitions of r_iand and x_i$ that
r i = a i b i -1 r j = a j b j -1 x i\text{r i = a i b i -1 r j = a j b j -1 x i} = & b i x j\text{b i x j} = & b j , .\text{b j , .}
This means that
(r i , r j ) x i x j = ( a i b i -1, a j b j -1 ) b i b j\text{(r i , r j ) x i x j = ( a i b i -1, a j b j -1 ) b i b j} & = (a i b j , a j b i )-b i b j\text{(a i b j , a j b i )-b i b j} & = (a i b j , a j b i )- (a i a j , b i b j ) , .\text{(a i b j , a j b i )- (a i a j , b i b j ) , .}
This concludes the proof of Lemma 2. \blacksquare
We can then apply Lemma 2 and Lemma 1 in order to get that
i,j (a i b j , a j b i )- i, j (a i a j , b i b j )\text{i,j (a i b j , a j b i )- i, j (a i a j , b i b j )} & = i, j [ (a i b j , a j b i )- (a i a j , b i b j ) ]\text{i, j [ (a i b j , a j b i )- (a i a j , b i b j ) ]} & = i, j (r i , r j ) x i x j\text{i, j (r i , r j ) x i x j} & 0\, .\text{.}
This implies the desired inequality.

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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.