Let be a polynomial of degree for some natural number such that for . What is the value of ?
Inspired by a problem by Anirban Singha.
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.
let there be a polynomial p ( x ) = x f ( x ) − 1 . notice that p ( x ) has degree 2 n + 1 and roots 1 , 2 , . . . , 2 n + 1 . hence p ( x ) = a ( x − 1 ) ( x − 2 ) . . . ( x − [ 2 n + 1 ] ) → f ( x ) = x a ( x − 1 ) ( x − 2 ) . . . ( x − [ 2 n + 1 ] ) + 1 for some constant a . for f ( x ) to be a polynomial, we need x ∣ ∣ a ( x − 1 ) ( x − 2 ) . . . ( x − [ 2 n + 1 ] ) + 1 → x ∣ ∣ a ( − 1 ) ( − 2 ) . . . ( − [ 2 n + 1 ] ) + 1 → a ( − 1 ) ( − 2 ) . . . ( − [ 2 n + 1 ] ) + 1 = 0 → a = ( 2 n + 1 ) ! 1 hence f ( x ) = x ( 2 n + 1 ) ! 1 ( x − 1 ) ( x − 2 ) . . . ( x − [ 2 n + 1 ] ) + 1 → f ( 2 n + 3 ) = 2 n + 3 ( 2 n + 1 ) ! 1 ( 2 n + 2 ) ! + 1 = 1