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Mathematica competitions in Croatia

Croatia algebra

Problem

Determine all functions such that for all real numbers and holds
Solution
Let . Setting in the given equation gives . Setting gives Setting gives . Assume that . Then there exists such that . Setting in (\circ) gives , a contradiction. Hence . Setting , in the given equation gives . We have obtained , i.e. . Assume . Setting , gives But the given equation gives , a contradiction. Hence . Setting in the given equation gives . Setting gives . We have two cases: or . Assume . Then . Because , we have . If and are real numbers such that , the given equation gives . This is true for, e.g., and and we conclude that . But setting in (\circ) gives , a contradiction. Hence and we can simplify obtained identities to and . From the first identity we have for all . Assume there is such that . Setting and in the given equation gives therefore which is a contradiction with the assumption . Hence for all holds . This implies that for all , which is possible only if for all . Let . Setting in gives or . But if , setting , in the given equation gives , a contradiction. Hence the only possible solution is . We check directly that it really satisfies the given equation.
Final answer
f(x) = x^2 for all real x

Techniques

Functional Equations