Let be the set of real numbers. Let be a function such that for all real numbers and , we have Let . Determine the number of possible values of .
HMMT February
Solution
Letting gives for all . When the equation above gives or . If , then for all nonegative , so the LHS becomes , and RHS becomes for all , which cannot be equal to LHS if . If then for all nonnegative . Moreover, letting gives for all . Since negative values are never used as inputs on the LHS and the output on the RHS is always squared, we may conclude that for all negative and are both possible (and the values are independent). Therefore, the value of can be written as for . It is not difficult to see that can take any integer value between 0 and inclusive, so there are 2039191 possible values of .
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