Introduction

When I was a student (quite some time ago, oh yes) I was already fa-
miliar with the name of Vasile Crtoaje. For me, and many others of my
age, it is the name of someone that helped me grow in mathematics, even
though I never met this person. It is a name synonymous to hard and beau-
tiful problems involving inequalities; I remember how happy I was when I
could manage to solve one of the problems proposed by Professor Crtoaje
in Gazeta Matematica or Revista Matematica din Timisoara (unfortu-
nately the only decent mathematics magazines that we could get at that
time); I particularly remember the problem that appears in the book that
you are holding in your hands right now (if you read till here, and I hope you
did) as problem 2 in the first chapter. I see you taking a look (if you read
until here, yes) and saying: it is a simple problem! Simple, yes, but I dare to
remind you that I didnt have this book, or others; you are lucky to have the
possibility to choose the materials that you can use in your mathematical
preparation and you are lucky to have now this particular new book of in-
equalities, which, I say, is a very special one. As I already mentioned, when
you say Crtoaje, you say inequalities and this book is a great opportunity
for us all to see some of these (old and new) methods in solving inequalities
fully shared with a great number of applications to illustrate them.
You ar invited to warm up with the exercises from the first chapter; funny,
isnt it? A lot of these exercises are actually hard problems that will really
solicit your strength as a solver. I cant tell you how I worked on some of
these problems a few years ago, when I was not so involved in the topic of
inequalities; for example, problem 27 was quite a touchstone for me at that
time and only derivatives helped me to solve it. Just look at the two solutions
presented in the book (especially the second) and you will know again why
do you love inequalities. Or the five solutions given for the problem 25: dont
you wish to be the author of at least one of them?
Many problems from the book, their majority I would say, are obtained
by the author himself. Well, the second chapter of the book deals with
inequalities related to an amazing result of Crtoaje, the first problem from
this section (I solved it by myself about three years ago, and I can tell that

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it is not at all an easy one) - read the solutions and you will find out why I
say amazing (and Im not the only one thinking like that: in Crux, I believe
that in 2003 or 2004, the same opinion was stated). This chapter is full of
hard problems, read them and learn!
The third chapter is devoted to the exposition of a very interesting method
(a new one, introduced by Crtoaje, as far as I know) of proving inequali-
ties that seem, at a first glance, to be of Jensen type; however, when you
look closer, you find that they are stronger and the Jensens inequality alone
cannot help you. This stronger method of right convex (or left concave)
functions is needed; it shows that a Jensen type inequality can be extended
sometimes to a larger domain in which the variables may be pushed, and
this furnishes spectacular unexpected (unbelievable, if Im allowed to say)
inequalities. (Since I chose to share of my experience with Crtoajes in-
equalities, I might say that I have a solution on five pages for the problem
27 - without RCF, or LCF, of course!)
Yet about convex functions is the fourth chapter where two extensions of
a beautiful (and well-known, I think) result of the Romanian mathematician
Tiberiu Popoviciu on convex (or concave) functions are exhibited. These
extensions are themselves remarkable, together with their applications; the
reader can experience to find connections with the previous chapter.
Certainly the climactic point of this great book is attained somewhere in
the fifth or sixth chapter. These sections deal with two powerful methods
for solving very hard symmetric inequalities; this isnt for the beginners,
anymore! But, if you arrived here, you definitely need to go on, till the end
(can you stop?). As I said, the inequalities are difficult and the methods
may seem also unpleasant and hard, but if you take a second look, you may
find that they are only natural extensions of some elementary approaches
that you already knew; and, with a pencil in your hand, exercising, you will
precisely find that all that dirty work is worth for the beautiful achievements
(and you cant prove them on a different way, can you?)
The seventh chapter, about symmetric inequalities involving fractions
will give you the occasion to exercise more with inequalities and to see more
methods (or should I say more tricks) frequently used; they are not explicitly
stated, but (as we said before) read and learn! If you are anyhow involved
in mathematical competitions, you will be happy to meet in this chapter an
old acquaintance, namely a famous Iran Olympiad problem from 1996, and
you should be delighted about its consistent generalizations that youll find
here.
You get in the end a final problem set; now, you should deal in different
terms with these problems, which I recommend for any mathematical an-
thology. If you did carefully read the book, you may find that your skills in

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solving inequalities were considerably improved. However, one needs not to
read every single page of this material; the chapters are independent and you
may even open the book somewhere, arbitrarily, and try to solve an inequal-
ity or find its solution from the book (its true that, sometimes, you cannot
do this without reading the presentation in the opening of the chapter or
some of the previous pages). Also, we must add that the book is full of up
to date problems, since the author is an active member of the Mathlinks Site
Forum on the Internet (many problems appeared there for the first time) -
of course many classical inequalities may also be found, so that the amateurs
of either old, or new inequalities should be satisfied.
Last, but not least, one has to remark the outstanding tenacity and en-
thusiasm of the author in solving inequalities; definitely, he is a passionate of
this realm of elementary (and not only elementary) mathematics. And this
book is neither more, nor less than a work of a master.

Marian Tetiva