is a reals to reals function, such that for any integer unless 0, these following properties hold
Then, find the value of .
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The idea to solve this problem is to find the formula of function f .
First, note that property (i) can actually be generalized as f ( x + k ) = f ( x ) + k . This is according to the following fact that:
f ( x + 1 ) = f ( x ) + 1
f ( x + 2 ) = f ( x + 1 ) + 1 = f ( x ) + 2
f ( x + 3 ) = f ( x + 2 ) + 1 = f ( x + 1 ) + 2 = f ( x ) + 3 , etc.
By the generalization above, our next step is to express x 1 --from the property (ii)--to be of the form x + k .
x 1 = x + k
k = x 1 − x = x 1 − x 2
Hence, now we have x 1 = x + x 1 − x 2 . Our generalization is now ready to applied.
f ( x 1 ) = f ( x + x 1 − x 2 ) = f ( x ) + x 1 − x 2 . . . ( ∗ )
Recall propertiy (ii) and combine it with ( ∗ ) to get,
f ( x 1 ) = x 2 f ( x ) = f ( x ) + x 1 − x 2
Move f ( x ) from the left-most side to the center side to get,
x 2 f ( x ) − f ( x ) = x 1 − x 2
Put the f ( x ) out,
f ( x ) ( x 2 1 − 1 ) = x 1 − x 2
Continuing,
f ( x ) ( x 2 1 − x 2 ) = x 1 − x 2
⇔ f ( x ) = x
And at last we easily have f ( 2 2 5 ) = 2 2 5