Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /250 of 520

Algebra Difficulty 6.4 National olympiad Prove it

10. (AUS) Let r1,r2,,rnr_{1}, r_{2}, \ldots, r_{n} be real numbers greater than or equal to 1. Prove that
1r1+1+1r2+1++1rn+1nr1r2rnn+1 \frac{1}{r_{1}+1}+\frac{1}{r_{2}+1}+\cdots+\frac{1}{r_{n}+1} \geq \frac{n}{\sqrt[n]{r_{1} r_{2} \cdots r_{n}}+1}

Solution

10. We shall first prove the inequality for nn of the form 2k,k=0,1,2,2^{k}, k=0,1,2, \ldots The case k=0k=0 is clear. For k=1k=1, we have
1r1+1+1r2+12r1r2+1=(r1r21)(r1r2)2(r1+1)(r2+1)(r1r2+1)0 \frac{1}{r_{1}+1}+\frac{1}{r_{2}+1}-\frac{2}{\sqrt{r_{1} r_{2}}+1}=\frac{\left(\sqrt{r_{1} r_{2}}-1\right)\left(\sqrt{r_{1}}-\sqrt{r_{2}}\right)^{2}}{\left(r_{1}+1\right)\left(r_{2}+1\right)\left(\sqrt{r_{1} r_{2}}+1\right)} \geq 0
For the inductive step it suffices to show that the claim for kk and 2 implies that for k+1k+1. Indeed,
i=12k+11ri+12kr1r2r2k2k+1+2kr2k+1r2k+2r2k+1+12k2k+1r1r2r2k+12k+1+1 \begin{aligned} \sum_{i=1}^{2^{k+1}} \frac{1}{r_{i}+1} & \geq \frac{2^{k}}{\sqrt[2^{k}]{r_{1} r_{2} \cdots r_{2^{k}}}+1}+\frac{2^{k}}{\sqrt[2^{k}]{r_{2^{k}+1^{\prime} r_{2^{k}}+2^{\cdots r_{2^{k+1}}}+1}}} \\ & \geq \frac{2^{k+1}}{\sqrt[2^{k+1}]{r_{1} r_{2} \cdots r_{2^{k+1}}}+1} \end{aligned}
and the induction is complete. We now show that if the statement holds for 2k2^{k}, then it holds for every nn. The function f(x)=11+exf(x)=\frac{1}{1+e^{x}} is convex for x>0x>0 : indeed, f(x)=ex(ex1)(ex+1)3>0f^{\prime \prime}(x)=\frac{e^{x}\left(e^{x}-1\right)}{\left(e^{x}+1\right)^{3}}>0. Thus by Jensen's inequality applied to f(x1),,f(xn)f\left(x_{1}\right), \ldots, f\left(x_{n}\right), we get 1r1+1++1rn+1nr1rnn+1\frac{1}{r_{1}+1}+\cdots+\frac{1}{r_{n}+1} \geq \frac{n}{\sqrt[n]{r_{1} \cdots r_{n}}+1}.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.