Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Find the answer

If a,b,c>0a, b, c>0, what is the smallest possible value of a+bc+b+ca+c+ab\left\lfloor\frac{a+b}{c}\right\rfloor+\left\lfloor\frac{b+c}{a}\right\rfloor+\left\lfloor\frac{c+a}{b}\right\rfloor? (Note that x\lfloor x\rfloor denotes the greatest integer less than or equal to xx.)

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

Since x>x1\lfloor x\rfloor>x-1 for all xx, we have that a+bc+b+ca+c+ab>a+bc+b+ca+c+ab3=(ab+ba)+(bc+cb)+(ca+ac)3\begin{aligned} \left\lfloor\frac{a+b}{c}\right\rfloor+\left\lfloor\frac{b+c}{a}\right\rfloor+\left\lfloor\frac{c+a}{b}\right\rfloor & >\frac{a+b}{c}+\frac{b+c}{a}+\frac{c+a}{b}-3 \\ & =\left(\frac{a}{b}+\frac{b}{a}\right)+\left(\frac{b}{c}+\frac{c}{b}\right)+\left(\frac{c}{a}+\frac{a}{c}\right)-3 \end{aligned} But by the AM-GM inequality, each of the first three terms in the last line is at least 2. Therefore, the lefthand side is greater than 2+2+23=32+2+2-3=3. Since it is an integer, the smallest value it can be is 4. This is in fact attainable by letting (a,b,c)=(6,8,9)(a, b, c)=(6,8,9).

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