High School Secrets

Viet Quoc Hoang

The University of Auckland
Mathematics graduate
April 28, 2013
Abstract
Many high school students understand the textbook concepts and nd them a bit boring to
just do the usual practice exercises. However, if they choose to take on a Scholarship in Calculus
or Statistics, often a case, the questions in those exams may simply change their opinions about
a particular topic or subject. Why is it a case? This is basically a problem in writing textbook in
which there is a little or no advanced mathematical techniques required. In order to unveil this
mystery, I have opened this article for curious minded teachers, students, parents or educators
to have a chance to look back at what we could have done further, out side the textbook context
and dig into more of advance Mathematics. This is dedicated to my parents with their greatest
support that I could not ask for more and my brother for his endless interest in Mathematics
and his new laptop sent over to me, without it, the script could not have been written.
1 Translation and Rotation matter
Occasionally, we deal with several tough problems such as rotating a graph about a point that is NOT
the origin and so forth. In order to accomplish this mission, we need to develop the tools beyond
high school knowlegde (what I mean here is the concept of Matrices). And yes, having coped with
matrix is not a pleasant experience at all, in fact, we need to understand basic matrix operations such
as addition, subtraction, multiplication, inverse of a matrix, eigenvalues, eigenvectors, determinants
and so on. I will let your textbook handle this critical part. Lets talk a bit more about the change
in the origin.
Theorem 1 As usual, our origin should be at (0, 0) by mathematical convention. Now, here comes
an interesting story, suppose I do not want my origin to be at (0, 0) but rather at some chosen points,
how would I do this? The answer is simple. We perform the following transfromation, in fact, to be
precise, coordinate-wise transformation. Let (a, b) be our new origin, we consider the transformation
under the previous coordinate system as follows
(x, y) (x + a, y + b)
So, our rst tool is seemingly understandable and applicable. However, the second theorem I will be
stating below is not that simple to comprehend at the rst sight and the proof for this is omitted due
to a basic reason: it is everywhere in standard Calculus textbooks for rst-year university courses.
1
Theorem 2 Let (x, y) be the point in the Cartesian coordinate system and we want to rotate that
point about the origin (0, 0) with the angle , counter-clockwise. The transformation is given in
the following formula
_
x

_
=
_
cos sin
sin cos
__
x
y
_
where (x

, y

) denotes the transformation point of (x, y).

Similarly, it follows from the above theorem with a little spin of trigonometry cos = cos() and
sin() = sin .
Theorem 3 Let (x, y) be the point in the Cartesian coordinate system and we want to rotate that
point about the origin (0, 0) with the angle , clockwise. The transformation is given in the following
formula
_
x

_
=
_
cos sin
sin cos
__
x
y
_
Yes, we are right there to get ready for the rst problem.
Problem 1 (Modied NCEA Calculus Exam 2011, Question 2(ii))
Consider the function g(x) =
_
1

x. The curve y = g(x) rotated 180 degrees around the point

_
1
2
,
1
2
_
. The two curves intersect only at the points (0, 1) and (1, 0). Find the area of the region
enclosed by the two curves.
Needless to say, the important part of this question is to determine the rotated equation of g(x). To
do this, we would like to implement the above theories correctly. Lets go over this for once. Firstly,
we have got to move the origin to the point
_
1
2
,
1
2
_
. Thus,
(x, y)
_
x +
1
2
, y +
1
2
_
Therefore, the original function becomes
y +
1
2
=

1
_
x +
1
2
Furthermore, we need to rotate g(x) around the new origin. Thus, let us see how transformation
matrix works
_
x

_
=
_
cos sin
sin cos
__
x
y
_
=
_
1 0
0 1
__
x
y
_
=
_
x
y
_
As a matter of fact, the above function becomes
y +
1
2
=

1
_
x +
1
2
y =
1
2

1
_
x +
1
2
2
Now, we convert back to our normal origin (0, 0) by doing a backward transformation (This is
my favorite part of this technique).
(x, y)
_
x
1
2
, y
1
2
_
Therefore, our rotated function becomes
y
1
2
=
1
2

_
1

_
x
1
2
_
+
1
2
= 1
_
1

1 x
Putting everything together, our original and new functions are, respectively, y = g(x) =
_
1

1 x
and y = h(x) = 1
_
1

1 x. One can show that these two functions meet at (0, 1) and (1, 0).
Finding area between these two curves is left for interested readers. (Hint. Substitution technique).
2 A journey of Inequality
Inequality is often regarded one of the hardest topics at high school curriculum level. Indeed, it is a
combination of rigorous algebra and a little bit of intuition (this can be achieved by regular practice,
at least to my own experience).
Problem 2 (IMO 1969 B3) Given real numbers x
1
, x
2
, y
1
, y
2
satisfying x
1
> 0, x
2
> 0 and x
1
y
1
>
z
2
1
, x
2
y
2
> z
2
2
. Prove that
8
(x
1
+ x
2
)(y
1
+ y
2
) (z
1
+ z
2
)
2

1
x
1
y
1
z
2
1
+
1
x
2
y
2
z
2
2
Give necessary and sucient condition for equality.
Theorem 4 (A tender version of Holders inequality)
Let a
i
, b
i
, c
i
be postive numbers for i = 1, n, one has
_
n

k=1
a
k
__
n

k=1
b
k
__
n

k=1
c
k
_

_
n

k=1
3
_
a
k
b
k
c
k
_
3
Solution 1 We may rewrite the inequality as
8
_
(x
1
+ x
2
)(y
1
+ y
2
) (z
1
+ z
2
)
2

_
1
x
1
y
1
z
2
1
+
1
x
2
y
2
z
2
2
_
Again, we need a little help from Cauchy-Schwarz inequality
(x
1
+ x
2
)(y
1
+ y
2
) (z
1
+ z
2
)
2
(

x
1
y
1
+

x
2
y
2
)
2
(z
1
+ z
2
)
2
Thus, it suces to show that
_
(

x
1
y
1
+

x
2
y
2
)
2
(z
1
+ z
2
)
2

_
1
x
1
y
1
z
2
1
+
1
x
2
y
2
z
2
2
_
8
or
_
1
x
1
y
1
z
2
1
+
1
x
2
y
2
z
2
2
_
(

x
1
y
1
+ z
1
+

x
2
y
2
+ z
2
)(

x
1
y
1
z
1
+

x
2
y
2
z
2
) 8
This is the traight application of Holder inequality above and thus, we are done.
3
There is a list of generalization and related inqualities for you to enjoy proving
Problem 3 (1
st
generalization)
If x
i
> 0 and x
i
y
i
> z
2
i
then prove that
n
3
_
n

k=1
x
i
__
n

k=1
y
i
_

_
n

k=1
z
i
_
2

n

k=1
1
x
i
y
i
z
2
i
Problem 4 (High School Mathematics, China Tianjin No.3, 1992)
Given positive real numbers x
1
, x
2
, y
1
, y
2
satisfying x
1
y
1
> z
2
1
, x
2
y
2
> z
2
2
, prove that
(x
1
+ x
2
)(y
1
+ y
2
) (z
1
+ z
2
)
2
+ 4
_
(x
1
y
1
z
2
1
)(x
2
y
2
z
2
2
)
Problem 5 (Strengthened version)
Given positive real numbers x
1
, x
2
, y
1
, y
2
satisfying x
1
y
1
> z
2
1
, x
2
y
2
> z
2
2
, prove that
4
(x
1
+ x
2
)(y
1
+ y
2
) (z
1
+ z
2
)
2

1
_
(x
1
y
1
z
2
1
)(x
2
y
2
z
2
2
)
Here are the selelected inequalities from dierent contests around the world, the list will be regularly
updated for the sake of reference
Problem 6 (Moldova TST 2013)
For x, y, z > 0, show that
x
y
+
y
z
+
z
x

z(x + y)
y(y + z)
+
x(y + z)
z(x + z)
+
y(x + z)
x(x + y)
Problem 7 (Moldova TST 2013)
Consider the obtuse angled-triangle ABC and its side lengths a, b, c. Prove that
a
3
cos A + b
3
cos B + c
3
cos C < abc
Problem 8 (Moldova TST 2013)
Let x, y, z > 0. Show that
(xy + yz + zx)
_
1
x
2
+ y
2
+
1
y
2
+ z
2
+
1
z
2
+ x
2
_
>
5
2
Hint. Let z = min{x, y, z}. Consider f(x, y, z) f(x, y, 0). Equality occurs when (x, y, z) = (k, k, 0)
and its permutations. Moreover, a new and nice inequality pops up as a present
xy
x
2
+ y
2
+
x
y
+
y
x

5
2
Problem 9 (High School Mathematics, China Tianjin, No.4, 2013)
Let a, b, c be positive real numbers such that abc = 1. Prove that
1
b + c +
+
1
c + a +
+
1
a + b +

3
2 +
4
Hint. Let x
3
= a, y
3
= b and z
3
= c and use the following useful inequality x
3
+ y
3
xy(x + y) to
complete the proof.
Problem 10 (Iran TST 2013, Day 2, Problem 2)
Let a, b, c be sides of a triangle such that a b c, prove that
_
a(a + b

ab) +
_
b(a + c

ac) +
_
c(b + c

bc) a + b + c
Extension: The condition a, b, c are sides of a triangle is not necessary here. In fact, by the rst
script is written, there is no submitted solution on the famous problem solving website http://www.
mathlinks.ro. Here is the sketch of the proof in the general case.
Solution 2 Firstly, we need to play around a bit with algebra. Thus, a strong algebraic manipulation
skill is required here. The readers are encouraged to double-check these computation in order to
convince themselves about the validity of the proof.
_
a(a + b

ab)

a(

a +

b)
2
=

a
_
_
a + b

ab

a +

b
2
_
=
3

a(

b)
2
2(2
_
a + b

ab +

a +

b)
Thus, it suces to show that
3

a(

b)
2
2
_
a + b

ab +

a +

b
+
3

c(

c)
2
2
_
b + c

bc +

b +

c
+
3

b(

c)
2
2
_
a + c

ac +

a +

c
(

b)
2
+ (

c)
2
There is a good chance that the LHS could be compared with an expression containing simpler terms,
in fact, we may need the following estimation
2
_
a + b

ab < 2(

a +

b)
Thus, we only need to show that

a(

b)
2

a +

b
+

b(

c)
2

a +

c
+

c(

c)
2

b +

c
(

b)
2
+ (

c)
2
or
(

c)
2

a +

c

(

b)
2

a +

b
+
(

c)
2

b +

c
This is exactly what we are looking for, a nice, neat and good looking form of inequality. Now, it is
the time for some serious algebra, lets take a walk...
(

b)
2
+ 2(

b)(

c) + (

c)
2

a +

c

(

b)
2

a +

b
+
(

c)
2

b +

c
or
(

b)
2
(

c)

a +

b
+ 2(

b)(

c)
(

c)
2
(

b)

b +

c
5
Thus, we only need to check that

a +

b
+ 2

b +

c
However, it is correct since the RHS is less than 1 and the LHS is more than 1. Therefore, needless to
say, we just complete the proof here. Throughout the entire proof, we have not used triangle condition
yet so this version is clearly stronger.
6