Revision as of 12:57, 31 August 2008 by Narupley (Talk)

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Choose 13 real numbers $ x_1,x_2,\ldots,x_{13}\in\mathbb{R} $ with $ x_i\neq x_j $ if $ i\neq j $. For these 13 numbers there exist at least two numbers amongst them such that

$ 0 < \frac{x_i-x_j}{1+x_ix_j} \leq 2-\sqrt{3} $

It's a tricky one to prove, unless you are one endowed with a certain amount of intuition (exempli gratia, Uli, et alii). Simple trigonometry and the ever overlooked Pigeonhole Principle are key tools to solving it.

As a side note, digg this.

Alumni Liaison

Ph.D. on Applied Mathematics in Aug 2007. Involved on applications of image super-resolution to electron microscopy

Francisco Blanco-Silva