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Algebra Difficulty 5.0 AIME, harder Prove it

. Let a,b,ca, b, c be positive numbers such that ab+bc+ca=3a b + b c + c a = 3. Prove that

a+b+cabc+2 a + b + c \geq a b c + 2

Solution

Eliminating cc gives

a+b+cabc=a+b+(1ab)c=a+b+(1ab)(3ab)a+b a+b+c-a b c=a+b+(1-a b) c=a+b+\frac{(1-a b)(3-a b)}{a+b}

Put x=abx=\sqrt{a b}. Then a+b2xa+b \geq 2 x, and since 1<x2<3,(1ab)(3ab)a+b(1x2)(3x2)2x1<x^{2}<3, \frac{(1-a b)(3-a b)}{a+b} \geq \frac{\left(1-x^{2}\right)\left(3-x^{2}\right)}{2 x}.

It then suffices to prove that

2x+(1x2)(3x2)2x2 2 x+\frac{\left(1-x^{2}\right)\left(3-x^{2}\right)}{2 x} \geq 2

This last inequality follows from the arithmetic-geometric means inequality

2x+(1x2)(3x2)2x=3+x42x=12x+12x+12x+x324(116)14=2 2 x+\frac{\left(1-x^{2}\right)\left(3-x^{2}\right)}{2 x}=\frac{3+x^{4}}{2 x}=\frac{1}{2 x}+\frac{1}{2 x}+\frac{1}{2 x}+\frac{x^{3}}{2} \geq 4\left(\frac{1}{16}\right)^{\frac{1}{4}}=2

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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.