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Difficulty: 5/102022 IOQM 2022 (Q15)

Let be real numbers such that . Let and be the largest and the smallest values of the expression:

If can be expressed in the form where are nonzero integers with , find the value of .

Guide / Hint

Hint 1: Express in terms of using the condition .

Hint 2: Substitute to simplify the expression to a function .

Hint 3: Set , write it as a quadratic in , and set the discriminant to find the bounds and , then compute .

Solution

Step 1: Use the algebraic identity:

Since , we have .

Step 2: Substitute into the expression:

Step 3: Let . Since can be any real numbers satisfying , can take any real value. We define the function:

Step 4: To find the range of , set and form a quadratic equation:

Step 5: Since is real, the discriminant of this quadratic equation must be non-negative:

Step 6: The roots of represent the minimum and maximum values of :

Step 7: Calculate :

Comparing to , we get and (which are coprime).

Step 8: Finally, find :

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