Solve the following system of equations for real and :
x &=&
y &=&
z &=&
Problem 1428
Official solution
1. Given the system of equations:
We start by squaring each equation to eliminate the square roots:
2. Rearrange each equation to isolate the terms involving , , and :
3. Notice that if , then substituting for and in the original equations should satisfy all three equations. Let's test :
Squaring both sides:
Rearrange to form a quadratic equation:
Factor the quadratic equation:
Thus, the solutions are:
4. Since , , and must be real and non-negative (as they are under square roots in the original equations), we discard . Therefore, we have:
5. Verify the solution by substituting back into the original equations:
The solution satisfies all three equations.
6. To check for any other possible solutions, consider the case where none of , , or is equal to 3. Multiply the three equations:
This simplifies to:
Since , the left-hand side must be non-negative. However, the product of three non-negative terms equaling 27 implies that each term must be at least 3, which is not possible unless .
Therefore, the only solution is .
The final answer is .