Given real numbers a,b and c such that 0≤a≤b≤c and a+b+c=1. Prove that
abb−a+bcc−b+acc−a<41
Solution
For every x≤y we have by the arithmetic-geometric mean inequality that y−x≤2y−x+1 with equality if and only if y−x=1. Furthermore, we note that 1−a=b+c and the symmetric variants, because a+b+c=1. If we apply this to the roots on the left side, we get
where in the last step we have already factored out 41 for convenience. Now we note that ab2≤b3 and ac2+bc2≤2bc2=2bc⋅c≤(b2+c2)c=b2c+c3. In these inequalities, equality holds respectively if a=b and if a=b=c. If we apply this above, we get
In the last inequality, equality holds only if the terms a3,a2b,b2c and a2c that we added are all zero. In particular, this implies that a=0 and b2c=0, from which it follows due to b≤c that b=0.
It is easy to see that not all equality cases can occur simultaneously. For example, for a=b=0, the left side of the original inequality is equal to zero.
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