Olympiad Maths Prep

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Problem 785

AIME late
Algebra Difficulty 5.4 Find the answer

Example 18. Solve the inequality

514log52x5x15log5x 5^{\frac{1}{4} \log _{5}^{2} x} \geqslant 5 x^{\frac{1}{5} \log _{5} x}

Official solution

Solution. The domain of admissible values of inequality (14) is defined by the condition x>0x>0. For such xx, both sides of inequality (14) are positive. Taking the logarithm of both sides to the base 5, we obtain the inequality

14log52x1+15log52x \frac{1}{4} \log _{5}^{2} x \geqslant 1+\frac{1}{5} \log _{5}^{2} x

equivalent to (14). From (15), we get the inequality

log52x20 \log _{5}^{2} x \geqslant 20

i.e.

log5x25 \left|\log _{5} x\right| \geqslant 2 \sqrt{5}

Thus, inequality (14) is equivalent to the system

[log5x25log5x25[x5250<x525 \left[\begin{array}{l} \operatorname{log}_{5} x \geqslant 2 \sqrt{5} \\ \operatorname{log}_{5} x \leqslant -2 \sqrt{5} \end{array} \Leftrightarrow \left[\begin{array}{l} x \geqslant 5^{2} \sqrt{5} \\ 0<x \leqslant 5^{-2} \sqrt{5} \end{array}\right.\right.

Therefore, the solution set of inequality (14) is (0;525][525;+)\left(0 ; 5^{-2 \sqrt{5}}\right] \cup\left[5^{2} \sqrt{5} ;+\infty\right).

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