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Algebra Difficulty 7.8 National olympiad, round 2 Find the answer

Find a nonzero polynomial P(x,y)P(x,y) such that P(a,2a)=0P(\lfloor a \rfloor, \lfloor 2a \rfloor) = 0 for all real numbers aa. (Note: ν\lfloor \nu \rfloor is the greatest integer less than or equal to ν\nu.)

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

Solution

Take P(x,y)=(y2x)(y2x1)P(x,y) = (y-2x)(y-2x-1). To see that this works, first note that if m=am = \lfloor a \rfloor, then 2m2m is an integer less than or equal to 2a2a, so 2m2a2m \leq \lfloor 2a \rfloor. On the other hand, m+1m+1 is an integer strictly greater than aa, so 2m+22m+2 is an integer strictly greater than 2a2a, so 2a2m+1\lfloor 2a \rfloor \leq 2m+1.

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