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Algebra Difficulty 7.6 National olympiad, round 2 Find the answer

Let RR denote the set of all real numbers. Find all functions ff from RR to RR satisfying: (i) there are only finitely many ss in R such that f(s)=0f(s)=0, and (ii) f(x4+y)=x3f(x)+f(f(y))f\left(x^{4}+y\right)=x^{3} f(x)+f(f(y)) for all x,yx, y in R.

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

The only such function is the identity function on RR. Setting (x,y)=(1,0)(x, y)=(1,0) in the given functional equation (ii), we have f(f(0))=0f(f(0))=0. Setting x=0x=0 in (ii), we find f(y)=f(f(y))f(y)=f(f(y)) and thus f(0)=f(f(0))=0f(0)=f(f(0))=0. It follows from (ii) that f(x4+y)=x3f(x)+f(y)f\left(x^{4}+y\right)=x^{3} f(x)+f(y) for all x,yRx, y \in \mathbf{R}. Set y=0y=0 to obtain f(x4)=x3f(x)f\left(x^{4}\right)=x^{3} f(x) for all xRx \in \mathrm{R}, and so f(x4+y)=f(x4)+f(y)f\left(x^{4}+y\right)=f\left(x^{4}\right)+f(y) for all x,yRx, y \in \mathbf{R}. The functional equation suggests that ff is additive, that is, f(a+b)=f(a)+f(b)f(a+b)=f(a)+f(b) for all a,bRa, b \in \boldsymbol{R}. We now show this. First assume that a0a \geq 0 and bRb \in \boldsymbol{R}. It follows that f(a+b)=f((a1/4)4+b)=f((a1/4)4)+f(b)=f(a)+f(b)f(a+b)=f\left(\left(a^{1 / 4}\right)^{4}+b\right)=f\left(\left(a^{1 / 4}\right)^{4}\right)+f(b)=f(a)+f(b). We next note that ff is an odd function, since f(x)=f(x4)(x)3=f(x)f(-x)=\frac{f\left(x^{4}\right)}{(-x)^{3}}=-f(x), x0x \neq 0. Since ff is odd, we have that, for a<0a<0 and bRb \in R, f(a+b)=f((a)+(b))=(f(a)+f(b))=f(a)+f(b)f(a+b)=-f((-a)+(-b))=-(f(-a)+f(-b))=f(a)+f(b). Therefore, we conclude that f(a+b)=f(a)+f(b)f(a+b)=f(a)+f(b) for all a,bRa, b \in \mathbf{R}. We now show that {sRf(s)=0}={0}\{s \in R \mid f(s)=0\}=\{0\}. Recall that f(0)=0f(0)=0. Assume that there is a nonzero hRh \in \mathrm{R} such that f(h)=0f(h)=0. Then, using the fact that ff is additive, we inductively have f(nh)=0f(n h)=0 or nh{sRf(s)=0}n h \in\{s \in R \mid f(s)=0\} for all nNn \in \mathrm{N}. However, this is a contradiction to the given condition (i). It's now easy to check that ff is one-to-one. Assume that f(a)=f(b)f(a)=f(b) for some a,bRa, b \in \operatorname{R}. Then, we have f(b)=f(a)=f(ab)+f(b)f(b)=f(a)=f(a-b)+f(b) or f(ab)=0f(a-b)=0. This implies that ab{sRf(s)=0}={0}a-b \in\{s \in R \mid f(s)=0\}=\{0\} or a=ba=b, as desired. From (1) and the fact that ff is one-to-one, we deduce that f(x)=xf(x)=x for all xRx \in \mathrm{R}. This completes the proof.

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