Skip to main content
OlympiadHQ

Browse · MATH

Print

jmc

algebra intermediate

Problem

Suppose and . What is the smallest possible value of ?
Solution
Minimizing is equivalent to minimizing Note that and are always positive, so to minimize this expression, we take the largest possible value of

Then minimizing is equivalent to minimizing Note that is always positive, so to minimize this expression, we take Hence, the minimum value is
Final answer
-\frac{1}{7}