Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /60 of 520

Algebra Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it

Let a,b,ca, b, c be positive real numbers such that abc=23a b c=\frac{2}{3}. Prove that

aba+b+bcb+c+cac+aa+b+ca3+b3+c3 \frac{a b}{a+b}+\frac{b c}{b+c}+\frac{c a}{c+a} \geqslant \frac{a+b+c}{a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3}}

(FYR Macedonia)

Solution

By the AH mean inequality, we have

aba+b+bcb+c+cac+a=23(ac+bc)+23(ab+ac)+23(ab+ac)3ab+ac+bc \frac{a b}{a+b}+\frac{b c}{b+c}+\frac{c a}{c+a}=\frac{2}{3(a c+b c)}+\frac{2}{3(a b+a c)}+\frac{2}{3(a b+a c)} \geqslant \frac{3}{a b+a c+b c}

so it only remains to prove that 3ab+ac+bca+b+ca3+b3+c3\frac{3}{a b+a c+b c} \geqslant \frac{a+b+c}{a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3}}, or equivalently

3(a3+b3+c3)(a+b+c)(ab+ac+bc) 3\left(a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3}\right) \geqslant(a+b+c)(a b+a c+b c)

The last inequality easily follows by summing a3+b3ab(a+b),a3+c3ac(a+c)a^{3}+b^{3} \geqslant a b(a+b), a^{3}+c^{3} \geqslant a c(a+c), b3+c3bc(b+c)b^{3}+c^{3} \geqslant b c(b+c) and a3+b3+c33abca^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3} \geqslant 3 a b c.

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.