Absolute!

Algebra Level 1

True or False?

For any three real numbers ( x , y , z ) , (x, y, z), x + y + z x y + z + x + y z + x + y + z . |x|+|y|+|z|\leq |x-y+z|+|x+y-z|+|-x+y+z|.


Notation: | \cdot | denotes the absolute value function .

Yes, it is true No, it is false

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2 solutions

Áron Bán-Szabó
Jul 31, 2017

Note that

x y + z 2 + x + y z 2 = x x + y + z 2 + x + y z 2 = y x y + z 2 + x + y + z 2 = z \begin{aligned} \dfrac{x-y+z}{2}+\dfrac{x+y-z}{2} & = x \\ \dfrac{-x+y+z}{2}+\dfrac{x+y-z}{2} & = y \\ \dfrac{x-y+z}{2}+\dfrac{-x+y+z}{2} & = z \end{aligned}

Since a + b a + b |a|+|b|\geq |a+b| ,

x y + z 2 + x + y z 2 x x + y + z 2 + x + y z 2 y x y + z 2 + x + y + z 2 z \begin{aligned} \dfrac{|x-y+z|}{2}+\dfrac{|x+y-z|}{2} & \geq |x| \\ \dfrac{|-x+y+z|}{2}+\dfrac{|x+y-z|}{2} & \geq |y| \\ \dfrac{|x-y+z|}{2}+\dfrac{|-x+y+z|}{2} & \geq |z| \end{aligned}

By adding the inequations, we get x + y + z x y + z + x + y z + x + y + z \large |x|+|y|+|z|\leq |x-y+z|+|x+y-z|+|-x+y+z|

Zach Abueg
Jul 31, 2017

Letting

x = a + b y = b + c z = c + a \begin{aligned} x & = a + b \\ y & = b + c \\ z & = c + a \end{aligned}

then the following inequality is clear:

a + b + b + c + c + a 2 a + 2 b + 2 c \displaystyle |a + b| + |b + c| + |c + a| \leq 2|a| + 2|b| + 2|c|

How do we know that the first substitution is possible?

Calvin Lin Staff - 3 years, 10 months ago

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Hm, good question. What wouldn't make it possible?

Zach Abueg - 3 years, 10 months ago

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It is on the solution writer to justify that the substitution is possible. One way of doing so is to make it explicit like what Aron did. It is not on the reader/critiquer to justify that "this is definitely not possible".

Note: It is possible to come up with substitutions that do not work (for various reasons). This is more commonly an issue in functional equations and inequalities. As an explicit example, if we additionally required that a, b, c were positive (say in order to apply AM-GM), then such values do not exist for x = 1 , y = 2 , z = 5 x = 1, y = 2, z = 5 .

Calvin Lin Staff - 3 years, 10 months ago

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