Proving that a polynomial is positive A Finnish mathematics competition asked to prove that for all $x$ we have $x^8-x^7+2x^6-2x^5+3x^4-3x^3+4x^2-4x+\frac{5}{2}\geq 0$ for all real $x$. I heard that it follows from Hilbert's problem that one can prove this by writing the polynomial as sum of squares. How can I find such a representation? I managed to prove the inequality by considering cases $x\leq 0$, $0<x<1$ and $x\geq 1$ separately but I was unable to find a solution based on sum of squares.

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but it works and is quite elementary.
We can take the highest three powers and do this:
$$
x^8-x^7+x^6 = x^6(x^2-x+1) = x^6\left[\left(x-\dfrac{1}{2}\right)^2+\dfrac{3}{4}\right]
= x^6 \left(x-\dfrac{1}{2}\right)^2 + \dfrac{3}{4} x^6,
$$
which gives us the expression
$$
x^6 \left(x-\dfrac{1}{2}\right)^2 + \dfrac{3}{4} x^6 + −2x^5+3x^4−3x^3+4x^2−4x + \dfrac{5}{2}.
$$
Doing this three more times results in
$$
x^6 \left(x-\dfrac{1}{2}\right)^2 + \dfrac{3}{4}x^4\left(x-\dfrac{4}{3}\right)^2 + \dfrac{5}{3}x^2\left(x-\dfrac{9}{10}\right)^2 + \dfrac{53}{20}\left(x-\dfrac{40}{53}\right)^2 + \dfrac{105}{106} \geq 0.
$$
