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Bulgarian National Mathematical Olympiad

Bulgaria algebra

Problem

Find all functions , that satisfy the inequalities (i) (ii) for all positive and .
Solution
It follows from (i) that is strictly increasing function. Also, (ii) implies

Furthermore, (i) gives and the substitution and in (i) implies . Since is increasing we have . Note that (ii) implies . Assume . Since is increasing we have , a contradiction to . Therefore and . Letting in (1) we obtain for all positive . It follows now from (i) that Fix and let in the above inequalities. We have meaning that for all positive . This function is obviously a solution to the problem.
Final answer
f(x) = x for all positive real x

Techniques

Injectivity / surjectivity