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55rd Ukrainian National Mathematical Olympiad - Third Round (Second Tour)

Ukraine algebra

Problem

Numbers fulfill both equalities simultaneously:

and .
Solution
From the first equation , , so for all : . Add both equations and get Since every item , then their sum equals zero if and only if every item equals zero. So all . From the first equation follows that exactly one variable is not null, from the second equation follows that this variable equals . Thus, the equation is satisfied only by such set of numbers: , , , .
Final answer
Exactly one number equals negative one and all the others equal zero.

Techniques

Linear and quadratic inequalitiesOther