PUTNAM COMPETITION ANALYSIS PRACTICE PROBLEMS

Meeting Time: Friday, November 15, 5:15pm - 6:15pm.

PROBLEM 1. Find all nonnegative continuous functions f (x) on [0, )
such that
1
2

x
0
f (t)
2
dx =
1
x

x
0
f (t) dt

2
.
PROBLEM 2. Let
h(x, y) = (x y)
2
+

2 x
2

9
y

2
.
Show that the minimum of f in the region
R =

(x, y) : 0 < u <

2, y > 0

is equal to 8.
PROBLEM 3. Suppose that f is an even function on [1, 1] increasing on
[0, 1]. Suppose also that g is a convex function on [1, 1], i.e.,
g(tx + (1 t)y) tg(x) + (1 t)g(y)
for all t [0, 1] and x, y [1, 1]. Show that

1
1
f (x) dx

1
1
g(x) dx 2

1
1
f (x)g(x) dx.
PROBLEM 4. Let f be a continuous (complex-valued) function on [0, 1].
Show that

1
0
f (x) dx = 0
if and only if

1
0
|1 + z f (x)| dx 1
for all complex number z.
PROBLEM 5. Suppose that f (x) is a twice continuously differentiable
function on [0, 1] such that f (0) = 0, f

(0) = 1, f

(0) = 0 and 0 < f (x) < x.

Let 0 < x
1
< 1 and
x
n
= f (x
n1
).
Find the limit of the sequence {nx
n
}.
PROBLEM 6. Let {a
n
} be a sequence of real numbers such that
a
n+1
(2 a
n
) = 1.
Show that lim
n
a
n
= 1.
1
2
PROBLEM 7. Suppose that f (x) is twice continuously differentiable with
f (0) = f

(0) = 0 and
| f

(x)| C| f (x) f

(x)|
for some constant C and all x. Show that f (x) 0.