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Show that $1+ac+ab+3a\leq b+c+abc+3bc$ if $1\leq a\leq bc,$ $1\leq b\leq ac,$ $1\leq c\leq ab.$

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    Where is the inequality from?2011-12-18

1 Answers 1

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$1\leq a$, so $0\leq (a-1)$. Similarly for $b$ and $c$, so we have

$ 0\leq (a-1)(b-1)(c-1) $

$a \leq bc$ so $0\leq bc-a$ and

$ 0 \leq 4(bc-a) $

Adding these two we get

$ 0 \leq (a-1)(b-1)(c-1) + 4(bc-a) $

Multiplying out yields the result:

$ 0 \leq (abc-ab-ac+a-bc+b+c-1) + 4bc - 4a $ $ 0 \leq abc-ab-ac-3a+3bc+b+c-1 $ $ 1+ab+ac+3a \leq abc+3bc+b+c $ As required.

To solve this I took out the $bc$ and $a$ terms, as given that $bc-a$ could be 0, I reasoned that the inequality should hold with them gone. I "guessed" the factorization $(a-1)(b-1)(c-1)$, and put in some extra terms to compensate, which happened to be of the form $bc-a$.

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    Nice job of e$x$posing the symmetric heart of the question.2011-12-18