Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.0 AIME, harder Find the answer

How many real numbers xx are solutions to the following equation? 2003x+2004x=2005x2003^{x}+2004^{x}=2005^{x}

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

Solution

Rewrite the equation as (2003/2005)x+(2004/2005)x=1(2003 / 2005)^{x}+(2004 / 2005)^{x}=1. The left side is strictly decreasing in xx, so there cannot be more than one solution. On the other hand, the left side equals 2>12>1 when x=0x=0 and goes to 0 when xx is very large, so it must equal 1 somewhere in between. Therefore there is one solution.

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