A function in which addition and multiplication behave the same way

Exponents have a well-known property:

$$x^ax^b = x^{a+b}$$

but

$$x^{a} + x^{b} \neq x^{a+b}$$

Similarly,

$$\log(a) + \log(b) = \log(ab) $$

But

$$\log(a)\log(b) \neq \log(ab)$$

So my question is this:

Is there a function $f$ on $\mathbb{R}$ or some infinite subset of $\mathbb{R}$ with the following properties

$$(1)\quad f(x)f(y) = f(x+y)$$ $$(2)\quad f(x)+f(y) = f(x+y)$$ ie $$(3)\quad f(x)+f(y) = f(x)f(y)$$

It seems that $(2)$ requires the function to be linear...

Solution 1:

Your title expresses interest in "a function in which addition and multiplication behave the same way". That's condition (3) alone. Conditions (1) and (2) are unnecessarily-strong requirements that artificially restrict the possible solutions. Be that as it may ...

Let's invoke condition (3) with three arbitrary values, $x$, $y$, $z$.

$$\begin{align} f(x) + f(y) = f(x)\cdot f(y) \\ f(x) + f(z) = f(x)\cdot f(z) \end{align}$$ Subtracting, we get $$f(y) - f(z) = f(x)\cdot(\;f(y)-f(z)\;)\quad\to\quad\left(f(x)-1\right)\cdot\left(f(y)-f(z)\right) = 0$$ For all choices of $x$, $y$, $z$, at least one factor must vanish. We conclude that $f$ must be some constant; say, $k$. (The vanishing of the first factor requires specifically that $k=1$, but we'll go ahead and absorb this into the more-general statement.)

Then condition (3) reduces to $$k + k = k\cdot k \quad\to\quad k(k-2) = 0$$ so that $k = 0$ or $k = 2$. That is, we have two ways to satisfy condition (3):

$$f(x) \equiv 0 \qquad\text{or}\qquad f(x) \equiv 2$$

Imposing conditions (1) and (2) limits the solutions to just the first.

Solution 2:

The only such function is $f\equiv 0$. $f(0) + f(0) = f(0 + 0) = f(0)$, so that $f(0) = 0$. But then $f(x) = f(x + 0) = f(x)f(0) = 0$.

Solution 3:

From $(2), f(x)+f(0)=f(x+0)$, so $f(0)=0$. Then from $(1), f(x)f(0)=0=f(x)$, so only the zero function satisfies your requirements.