Let f:R+→R+ be a function satisfying
f(x)f(yf(x))=f(x+y),∀x,y∈R+
If f(1)=1152, evaluate f(4).
By inspection, we can see f(x)=1151x+1 is a solution, from which we can easily get the answer. But how can we show that this is the only solution?
Here is my work:
Because f is the reciprocal of a linear function, it would probably help to define g(x)=1f(x) (note that this is well defined as we are working in R+). Then the given equation becomes
g(x)g(yg(x))=g(x+y)
If we take y=g(x), then this becomes
g(x)g(1)=g(x+g(x))⟹152g(x)=g(x+g(x))
Not sure where to go from here. Any thoughts?
Answer
I'm going to proceed with your g(x)=1/f(x), starting with this
g(x)g(yg(x))=g(x+y)
but then re-setting in it y=g(x)y1 (possible for any positive y1) to get this basic equation
g(x)g(y)=g(x+g(x)y)
(in which I renamed y1 back to y). Applying this first with x=1 and then with some other x=w>1, letting B:=g(w), gives
g(1+152y)=152g(y)g(w+By)=Bg(y)
Suppose B<152. We can then pick a positive y such that 1+152y=w+By so that the left-hand sides are equal, but the right-hand sides are not (since g(y)>0) - contradiction. So w>1 implies g(w)≥152.
Now consider u=w+B(1+152y0) and v=1+152(w+By0) for some arbitrary y0>0:
g(u)=g(w+B+152By0)=Bg(1+152y0)=152Bg(y0)g(v)=g(1+152w+152By0)=152g(w+By0)=152Bg(y0)
Since the right-hand-sides are equal, g(u)=g(v). This means that either w+B=1+152w, meaning that
g(w)=B=1+151w
as we wanted to prove, or, g(u)=g(v) with u≠v. We derive a contradiction in the latter case. WLOG, suppose u<v. Then setting in (1) x=u,y=(v−u)/g(u)=:t, we get
g(u)g(t)=g(u+g(u)t)=g(v)∴g(t)=1
Now set in (1) x=t, to get g(t+y)=g(y) and since g(t)=1, it follows by induction that g(nt)=1 for any positive integer n. By choosing a sufficiently large n, we can make nt>1,g(nt)=1 which is a contradiction with the previous result that w>1⇒g(w)≥152. This leaves (2) as the unique solution.
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