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Cesko-Slovacko-Poljsko

algebra

Problem

Let be the set of all positive real numbers. Find all functions satisfying for any .
Solution
Simple manipulation with the given equation leads to After cancelling another manipulation gives (evidently, all the cancelled expressions are nonzero) and so for any . Hence Setting we get with a constant . As for any , we have for any and therefore . We can easily check that the function satisfies the given conditions for any : But , so the condition is satisfied for all and .

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Alternative solution.

Put and . Then we have Now put and to get As in the first solution, we have and it is easy to check that such a function satisfies the required conditions.
Final answer
f(x) = 1/(x + c) for c >= 0

Techniques

Functional Equations