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Algebra Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Find the answer

Does there exist a two-variable polynomial P(x,y)P(x, y) with real number coefficients such that P(x,y)P(x, y) is positive exactly when xx and yy are both positive?

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Solution

No. For any ϵ\epsilon and positive x,P(x,ϵ)>0x, P(x, \epsilon)>0 and P(x,ϵ)0P(x,-\epsilon) \leq 0. Thus by continuity/IVT, P(x,0)=0P(x, 0)=0 for all positive xx. Similarly P(0,y)=0P(0, y)=0 for all positive yy. This implies xyP(x,y)x y \mid P(x, y), and so we can write P(x,y)=xyQ(x,y)P(x, y)=x y Q(x, y). But then this same logic holds for QQ, and this cannot continue infinitely unless PP is identically 0 - in which case the conditions do not hold. So no such polynomial exists.

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