Summation Summation Summation

Algebra Level 4

Given x k , y k , z k > 0 x_k, y_k, z_k > 0 for all k k satisfy the three summations:

k = 1 2015 x k = 50 k = 1 2015 y k = 169 k = 1 2015 z k = 961 \begin{aligned} \displaystyle \sum_{k=1}^{2015} x_k & = & 50 \\ \displaystyle \sum_{k=1}^{2015} y_k & = & 169 \\ \displaystyle \sum_{k=1}^{2015} z_k & = & 961 \\ \end{aligned}

What is the minimum value of k = 1 2015 ( x k y k z k ) \displaystyle \sum_{k=1}^{2015} \left ( x_k y_k z_k \right ) ?

1 201 5 2 \frac{1}{2015^2} There is no minimum 1 2

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1 solution

Let x 1 = 50 α x_{1} = 50 - \alpha and x k = α 2014 x_{k} = \dfrac{\alpha}{2014} for 2 k 2015 2 \le k \le 2015 for some α > 0. \alpha \gt 0.

Let y 2 = 169 α y_{2} = 169 - \alpha and y 1 = y k = α 2014 y_{1} = y_{k} = \dfrac{\alpha}{2014} for 3 k 2015. 3 \le k \le 2015.

Let z 3 = 961 α z_{3} = 961 - \alpha and z 1 = z 2 = z k = α 2014 z_{1} = z_{2} = z_{k} = \dfrac{\alpha}{2014} for 4 k 2015. 4 \le k \le 2015.

Then the initial three sum conditions are satisfied, and we find that

S = k = 1 2015 x k y k z k = ( 50 + 169 + 961 3 α ) ( α 2014 ) 2 + 2012 ( α 2014 ) 3 . S = \displaystyle\sum_{k=1}^{2015} x_{k}y_{k}z_{k} = (50 + 169 + 961 - 3\alpha)(\dfrac{\alpha}{2014})^{2} + 2012(\dfrac{\alpha}{2014})^{3}.

We can then make S S arbitrarily small by making α \alpha arbitrarily small, but since α \alpha can never actually be 0 0 , (since x k , y k , z k > 0 x_{k}, y_{k}, z_{k} \gt 0 for all k k ), S S can never be zero. Thus there is no minimum.

Note that, since all the terms of S S exceed 0 0 by the given conditions, there is no way for S S to equal 0 0 . But by the above argument, if S S did have a minimum associated with some α \alpha value, then we could just choose a smaller α \alpha value in order to find a "smaller minimum", hence giving rise to a contradiction. Thus we can conclude that there is no minimum. We could get more formal here, but this is the general concept at work.

I thought Chebyshev's Inequality works even for more than 2 2 sequences. I used that and got the minimum 2 2 . Guess I was wrong.

Prasun Biswas - 6 years, 3 months ago

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Yeah, I was surprised too that it doesn't generalize.

Brian Charlesworth - 6 years, 3 months ago

Same mistake, dude!!

jaiveer shekhawat - 6 years, 3 months ago

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