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jmc

algebra senior

Problem

The complete graph of which consists of five line segments, is shown in red below. (On this graph, the distance between grid lines is )

Let and be the largest negative integer and the smallest positive integer, respectively, such that the functions and are invertible. What is

problem
Solution
The marked points are Thus, the slopes of the segments are If we graph then the slope of each segment is increased by For to be an invertible function, all the segments of its graph must have positive slope or all the segments of its graph must have negative slope. This guarantees that the function is either increasing for all in its domain or decreasing for all in its domain; either way, there is at most one input for each output. But if the graph of has any segment of slope then it cannot be invertible, and if it has segments of both positive and negative slope, then there is some "V-shaped" part of the graph where there are two points with the same -coordinate.

The largest negative integer we can add to the slope of each segment to make all the slopes negative is The smallest positive integer we can add to the slope of each segment to make all the slopes positive is Thus, and and
Final answer
41