hi guys, mathematics is beautiful.......

most of us are not able to njoy its beauty because we generally are not clear about why we are using a particular approach and that at times restricts us from further investigation.....here is one fundamental we use frequently a^b > b^a subject to the condition a<b and a,b are integers>2....actually if we impose the condition 3<a<b, it will be true for all real numbers as well......we'll start with an example.....i came across this question that sum of some +ve real numbers is 271, what is their maximum product....so far i had solved the questions in which numbers of numbers were mentioned based on the funda that when sum is constant then pruduct is maximum when numbers are equal.....this time i wasn't sure about the number of numbers.... so lets start with assumption that when number of numbers are n, then the maximum product is obtained...lets say nmbs a x1,x2,x3......xn with sum as 271.. so maximum product is obtained when numbers are all equal each being equal to 271/n and hence maximum product possible being (271/n)^n.....now since we assumed that maximum product is obtained when number of numbers are n, when number of numbers become (n+1), the corresponding maximum product i.e {271/(n+1)}^(n+1) will be less than the previously obtained maximum product.... i.e. {271/n}^n > {271/(n+1)}^(n+1) or {n+1}^(n+1)/n^(n+1) > 271/n or {n+!/n}^(n+1) > 271/n or {1+1/n}^(n+1) > 271/n now we have come to an interesting number called e or eular's number.... e is formally defined as the value of f(n)={1+1/n}^n when value of n becomes very very large or infinite....at infinite value of n, solution to this definition gives a value of e = 1/0! + 1/1! + 1/2! + 1/3! + .................upto infinite number of terms.... that gives its value as 2.71......so the value on the left hand side is very close to e since in this case we know that n should be sufficiently large.... so the value of 271/n should be close to the value of e hence maximum product will be obtained when each number is equal to 2.71 that makes a total of hundred numbers...hence maximum product is (2.71)^100......for different values of sums, answers may need more precise calculations....but it is sufficient to know this much....now i faced another question in one of the Coaching institute's tests in which satisfactory solution was not given (there are a lot many questions with unsatisfactory solutions in every coaching institute material)....question states that a = 100^100; b = 101^99 ; c = 102^98 ,find the order of magnitude... i used the basic result we are discussing here that 100^101 > 101^100 or (100/101)*100^100 > 101^99 or 100^100 > (100/101)*100^100 > 101^99 and can b solved further using the same rule..... now that got me into investigation of our main problem.... lets analyse a case lets say that sum of some numbers is 10, what is the maximum product analysing all the cases with different number of numbers. if there are 10 numbers then corresponding maximum product is forn=10,(10/10)^10 =1 for n=9, (10/9)^9 = 2.5811 for n=8, (10/^8 = 5.9604 for n=7, (10/7)^7 = 12.1426 for n=6, (10/6)^6 = 21.4334 for n=5, (10/5)^5 = 32 for n=4, (10/4)^4 = 39.0625 for n=3, (10/3)^3 = 37.0370 for n=2, (10/2)^2 = 25 for n=1, (10/1)^1 =10 wow....what does this investigation reveal, it confirms our thm that maximum product for a

particular sum is reached when each number approaches e.... in this case max product is obtained at n=2.5........looking at this investigation ,we can also prove using the previous method (when we proved for 271) that when numbers increase from 1 to a close value to e, the corresponding maximum product increases and afterwards the corr. max product decreases(subject to the condition that sum of numbers is constant...)........ If we want to find out that which one is greater a^b or b^a; 3<=a<b and a,b are integers, a^b is the maximum pruduct when sum of b numbers is ab... i hope im clear here because a^b =a*a*a*a*....*a(b times), so it is the max product corresponding to the sum a+a+a+.....+a(b times) = ab....similarly b^a is the maximum product corresponding to the sum of a numbers = ab......so this problem is just of comparing the values of a and b .......since a,b>e ; we know from our investigation (which can also be proved) that if a<b , a^b> b^a ... remember this we proved for values of a,b>=3....in general the rule for real numbers should be that a^b > b^a if e<a<b ..... .......also when 0<a<b<e, the inequality is a^b < b^a..........it was an interesting problem.....I may have made some trivial mistakes in this post....please inform me and i'll edit that.... best way to learn from any article or general proof is by taking an example and xploring as u read further....