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2005 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 20

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Problem

For each $x$ in $[0,1]$ , define $\begin{array}{clr} f(x) & = 2x, & \text { if } 0 \leq x \leq \frac {1}{2}; \\f(x) & = 2 - 2x, & \text { if } ...$ Let $f^{[2]}(x) = f(f(x))$ , and $f^{[n + 1]}(x) = f^{[n]}(f(x))$ for each integer $n \geq 2$ . For how many values of $x$ in $[0,1]$ is $f^{[2005]}(x) = \frac {1}{2}$ ? $(\text {A}) \ 0 \qquad (\text {B}) \ 2005 \qquad (\text {C})\ 4010 \qquad (\text {D}) \ 2005^2 \qquad (\text {E})\ 2^{2005}$

Solution

For the two functions $f(x)=2x,0\le x\le \frac{1}{2}$ and $f(x)=2-2x,\frac{1}{2}\le x\le 1$ ,we can see that as long as $f(x)$ is between $0$ and $1$ , $x$ will be in the right domain. Therefore, we don't need to worry about the domain of $x$ . Also, every time we change $f(x)$ , the final equation will be in a different form and thus we will get a different value of x. Every time we have two choices for $f(x$ ) and altogether we have to choose $2005$ times. Thus, $2^{2005}\Rightarrow\boxed{E}$ .

See Also

2005 AMC 12A (Problems • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 19	Followed by Problem 21
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25

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Category: Introductory Algebra Problems

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