4. Find all functions , for any satisfies
where is the set of real numbers.
4. Find all functions , for any satisfies
where is the set of real numbers.
Let , then
,
which means .
If , then for all , which satisfies the given condition.
Assume , then . Let . Clearly, , and for all , we have . Therefore, the function that satisfies the given condition is
Next, we determine the structure of so that the function defined by (1) satisfies the given condition for any real numbers .
It is easy to verify that if , and , then if and only if the function defined by (1) satisfies the given condition. When , the function defined by (1) also satisfies the given condition. By symmetry, we only need to consider the case where and .
When and , we have , so the given condition reduces to .
Since , we have , thus . Therefore, .
(i) If , then .
If , then , which contradicts .
(ii) If , then .
If , by (i) we know , thus , which is a contradiction.
(iii) If , then .
By (i) we know , and by (ii) we get .
Therefore, contains 1, does not contain 0, and is closed under multiplication and division. The closure under multiplication and division characterizes .
We finally write down all solutions to this problem:
Here is any fixed constant, and is any subset of that is closed under multiplication and division. When , it is the trivial solution mentioned earlier.