1983 AIME Problems/Problem 9
Contents
[hide]Problem
Find the minimum value of for .
Solution 1
Let . We can rewrite the expression as .
Since , and because , we have . So we can apply AM-GM:
The equality holds when .
Therefore, the minimum value is . This is reached when we have in the original equation (since is continuous and increasing on the interval , and its range on that interval is from , this value of is attainable by the Intermediate Value Theorem).
Solution 2
We can rewrite the numerator to be a perfect square by adding . Thus, we must also add back .
This results in .
Thus, if , then the minimum is obviously . We show this possible with the same methods in Solution 1; thus the answer is .
Solution 3 (uses calculus)
Let and rewrite the expression as , similar to the previous solution. To minimize , take the derivative of and set it equal to zero.
The derivative of , using the Power Rule, is
=
is zero only when or . It can further be verified that and are relative minima by finding the derivatives at other points near the critical points, or by checking that the second derivative is positive. However, since is always positive in the given domain, . Therefore, = , and the answer is .
Solution 4 (also uses calculus)
As above, let . Add to the expression and subtract , giving . Taking the derivative of using the Chain Rule and Quotient Rule, we have . We find the minimum value by setting this to . Simplifying, we have and . Since both and are positive on the given interval, we can ignore the negative root. Plugging into our expression for , we have .
See Also
1983 AIME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 8 |
Followed by Problem 10 | |
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