2019 IMO Problems/Problem 1
Contents
[hide]Problem
Let be the set of integers. Determine all functions such that, for all integers and ,
Solution 1
Let us substitute in for to get
Now, since the domain and range of are the same, we can let and equal some constant to get Therefore, we have found that all solutions must be of the form
Plugging back into the original equation, we have: which is true. Therefore, we know that satisfies the above for any integral constant c, and that this family of equations is unique.
(This solution does not work though because we don't know that is surjective)
Solution 2
We plug in and to get respectively.
Setting them equal to each other, we have the equation and moving "like terms" to one side of the equation yields Seeing that this is a difference of outputs of we can relate this to slope by dividing by on both sides. This gives us which means that is linear. (Functional equations don't work like that unfortunately)
Let Plugging our expression into our original equation yields and letting be constant, this can only be true if If then which implies However, the output is then not all integers, so this doesn't work. If we have Plugging this in works, so the answer is for some integer
Solution 3:
The only solutions are For some integer
Obviously these work. We prove these are the only linear solutions. Plug and separately to get that Plug to see and subtracting from both sides shows to be additive thus linear by Cauchy since this is on integers. Thus, is linear, and so we are done since it can be easily shown that and are the only linear solutions by plugging into the equation.
Solution 4: This works as well
We claim the only solutions are and for some integer ., which obviously work. Plugging in and give , so . Since this difference is constant and , we must have is linear (finite differences or induction). It is easy to see the only linear solutions are those specified above.
~ Ezra Guerrero
Solution 5
We all know how to solve a functional equation (unless you haven’t learned about it). We just plug in some trivial values and see where it takes us. Alright if , this means We know that is constant and we can see that is not constant (because it varies depends on the value of b), so let be a variable. This means we are making this a function of f(b). This yields that . This is a linear function (in terms of f(b))! However, we are not done yet. We have to show that this works. When and plugging in our function yields: and the last part is indeed true so we are good. Don’t forget the 0 function this works also. Let us verify that the 0 function works. This means , which is true and a so called “trivial” solution. Now let us prove this rigorously. Take when they equal and (I chose it that way since they are 1 apart from each other; Really you could have chosen and and that would work). We will show that this is linear or below. Substitute in the equations for both yields Equating and then subtracting yields . From this equation how do we know this is linear? Well treat the f(x) and f(x-1) like variables and dividing by two we can see that is constant since -1 and 0 are fixed values. And since the difference is constant and and are one apart this tells you that it is a linear function as the difference is constant, i.e 5x+4 is linear since the first positive x’s yields are 4, 9, 14… and we can see the difference is the same. Therefore we proved that the functions we said are good.
Side note: I am referring to the linear function where and the constant function which is .
~EaZ_Shadow
See Also
2019 IMO (Problems) • Resources | ||
Preceded by First Problem |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 | Followed by Problem 2 |
All IMO Problems and Solutions |