Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 5 / 209 of 400 #809 of 1964

Problem 809

AIME late
Algebra Difficulty 5.5 Find the answer

Determine all functions f:RRf: \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R} such that
f(x2y2)=xf(x)yf(y) f\left(x^{2}-y^{2}\right)=x f(x)-y f(y)
for all pairs of real numbers xx and yy.

A number or a short expression. Spacing, $ signs and \frac vs / are all fine.

Official solution

The answer is f(x)=cx,cRf(x)=c x, c \in \mathbb{R} (these obviously work).
First, by putting x=0x=0 and y=0y=0 respectively we have
f(x2)=xf(x) and f(y2)=yf(y). f\left(x^{2}\right)=x f(x) \text { and } \quad f\left(-y^{2}\right)=-y f(y) .

From this we deduce that ff is odd, in particular f(0)=0f(0)=0. Then, we can rewrite the given as f(x2y2)+f(y2)=f(x2)f\left(x^{2}-y^{2}\right)+f\left(y^{2}\right)=f\left(x^{2}\right). Combined with the fact that ff is odd, we deduce that ff is additive (i.e. f(a+b)=f(a)+f(b)f(a+b)=f(a)+f(b) ).
Remark (Philosophy). At this point we have f(x2)xf(x)f\left(x^{2}\right) \equiv x f(x) and ff additive, and everything we have including the given equation is a direct corollary of these two. So it makes sense to only focus on these two conditions.
Then
f((x+1)2)=(x+1)f(x+1)f(x2)+2f(x)+f(1)=(x+1)f(x)+(x+1)f(1) \begin{aligned} f\left((x+1)^{2}\right) & =(x+1) f(x+1) \\ \Longrightarrow f\left(x^{2}\right)+2 f(x)+f(1) & =(x+1) f(x)+(x+1) f(1) \end{aligned}
which readily gives f(x)=f(1)xf(x)=f(1) x.

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic, difficulty and ordering added by this site.