Determine all real numbers satisfying the following system of equations: .
Solution
It is clear that the numbers must be strictly positive. The first two equations give and . By subtracting them, we obtain . From this, we deduce that if then , and similarly if then . Therefore, if , we have , which implies that .
We can similarly show that if then . Therefore, in all cases, are equal, and their common value satisfies the equation , which can also be written as . Since is strictly positive, it must be that . Conversely, it is immediately verified that is indeed a solution to the system.
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