IMO 2020 · Problem 5

A deck of \(n > 1\) cards is given. A positive integer is written on each card. The deck has the property that the arithmetic mean of the numbers on each pair of cards is also the geometric mean of the numbers on some collection of one or more cards.

For which \(n\) does it follow that the numbers on the cards are all equal?

Official text of the problem. Official problem paper (PDF)

Answer

All integers \(n>1\).

Solution

Dividing every number by their greatest common divisor preserves the property: both arithmetic and geometric means are divided by the same positive number. Thus we may assume that the greatest common divisor of all the numbers is \(1\). We will prove that every number is \(1\).

Let \(M\) be the largest number on a card. Suppose that \(M>1\), and choose a prime \(p\) dividing \(M\). Since the greatest common divisor of all the numbers is \(1\), some card has a number not divisible by \(p\). Let \(b\) be the largest such number. In particular, \(b<M\), so these are two distinct cards.

By the given property, there are \(k\geq 1\) cards with numbers \(c_1,\ldots,c_k\) such that \[ \frac{M+b}{2}=(c_1c_2\cdots c_k)^{1/k}. \] Consequently, \[ (M+b)^k=2^k c_1c_2\cdots c_k. \] Because \(p\mid M\) and \(p\nmid b\), the left-hand side is not divisible by \(p\). Hence none of \(c_1,\ldots,c_k\) is divisible by \(p\). By the choice of \(b\), this gives \(c_j\leq b\) for every \(j\). Therefore \[ \frac{M+b}{2} =(c_1c_2\cdots c_k)^{1/k} \leq b. \] This implies \(M\leq b\), a contradiction.

Thus \(M=1\), and all the normalized numbers are \(1\). The original numbers are therefore all equal. The argument applies to every integer \(n>1\).

The solution was checked against the official IMO shortlist solutions.