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Baltic Way 2023 Shortlist

Baltic Way 2023 algebra

Problem

Find the smallest positive real number , such that for all positive real numbers and .
Solution
Let's prove that works. Then the following inequality should hold for all positive real numbers and : which is true, so we showed that actually works.

Now it remains to show that . Let's consider and where . Then the inequality becomes Notice that As can be arbitrarily small this expression can get arbitrarily close to . This means that cannot hold, as desired.
Final answer
1/2

Techniques

QM-AM-GM-HM / Power Mean