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2025-03-02 07:08:35 UTC

Greg Egan on Nostr: TIL that the function: f(x) = √[x (a-x)] + √[x (b-x)] has a maximum where x is ...

TIL that the function:

f(x) = √[x (a-x)] + √[x (b-x)]

has a maximum where x is half the harmonic mean of a and b:

x_m = a b / (a+b)

where its value is the geometric mean of a and b:

f(x_m) = √[a b]

But this doesn’t generalise if you add more terms, like √[x (c-x)]