Quantcast
Channel: Weird Functional Equation problem on the irrationals - Mathematics Stack Exchange
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 3

Weird Functional Equation problem on the irrationals

$
0
0

This weird question was given by my professor as a part of my assignment :

$\textbf{Question :}$

“Let $f: \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}$ be a function such that it satisfies $f(x + y) = x f(\frac{1}{y}) + y f(\frac{1}{x})$, whenever $x$ and $y$ are both irrational numbers. Then prove that $f(0)$ is always $0$.”

$\textbf{My attempt :}$

Since $0$ is rational, we can’t let any of the variables to be $0$. So I tried the substitution $y = -x$ to get $f(0) = x f(\frac{1}{-x}) - x f(\frac{1}{x})$.

I tried proving f to be an even function after this, so that $f(0)$ becomes $0$. But I couldn’t do so or proceed further anyhow.

Can somebody kindly provide me hints or solutions for this problem ?


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 3

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images