A Curve and Two Lines

Geometry Level pending

Suppose g g is the quadratic function with leading coefficient 1 whose graph is tangent to the lines 5 x + y 6 = 0 5x+y-6=0 and x y 1 = 0 x-y-1=0 . The sum of the coefficients of g g is p q \frac{p}{q} , where p p and q q are positive coprime integers. Find the value of 100 p + q 100p+q .


The answer is 2509.

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

1 solution

Harmony Luce
Apr 30, 2016

Suppose the quadratic function is g ( x ) = x 2 + b x + c g(x)=x^2+bx+c .

The two lines tangent to it can be rewritten as follows:

Line 1: y = 5 x + 6 y=-5x+6

Line 2: y = x 1 y=x-1

By definition of tangent, there must be x 1 , x_1, x 2 x_2 such that,

x 1 2 + b x 1 + c = 5 x 1 + 6 x_1^2+bx_1+c=-5x_1+6

x 2 2 + b x 2 + c = x 2 1 x_2^2+bx_2+c=x_2-1

The two equations above can be expressed as follows:

x 1 2 + ( b + 5 ) x 1 + ( c 6 ) = 0 x_1^2+(b+5)x_1+(c-6)=0

x 2 2 + ( b 1 ) x 2 + ( c + 1 ) = 0 x_2^2+(b-1)x_2+(c+1)=0

By definition of tangent again, the discriminant should be zero:

D 1 = ( b + 5 ) 2 4 ( 1 ) ( c 6 ) = 0 D_1=(b+5)^2-4(1)(c-6)=0

D 2 = ( b 1 ) 2 4 ( 1 ) ( c + 1 ) = 0 D_2=(b-1)^2-4(1)(c+1)=0

Upon solving the system above, we get

b = 13 3 b=-\dfrac{13}{3}

c = 55 9 c=\dfrac{55}{9} .

So, the sum of the coefficients of g g is given by

1 13 3 + 55 9 = 25 9 1-\dfrac{13}{3}+\dfrac{55}{9}=\dfrac{25}{9} .

This leads to,

p = 25 p=25

q = 9 q=9 .

Hence,

100 p + q = 100 ( 25 ) + 9 = 2509 . 100p+q=100(25)+9=\boxed{2509}.

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...