I'm having trouble with an exercise in the Cauchy Schwarz Master Class by Steele. Exercise 1.3b asks to prove or disprove this generalization of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality:
The following is the solution at the end of the book:
After struggling to understand the solution for a few hours, I still cannot see why the substitution $c_k^2 / (c_1^2 + \ldots + c_n^2)$ would bring the target inequality to the solvable inequality. Neither do I understand what the $n^2 < n^3$ bound has to do with anything or how it allows us to take a "cheap shot".
Thanks!
Edit: I'm also wondering, is there a name for this generalization of Cauchy-Schwarz? Any known results in this direction?