Find the number of distinct real values of which satisfies the equation below:
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.
To simplify the calculations, let x + 5 be equal to y .
( y − 3 ) ( y − 1 ) ( y + 1 ) ( y + 3 ) + 1 6 = 0
Since set of reals is closed under addition and subtraction, we just need to find the real values of y .
( y − 3 ) ( y − 1 ) ( y + 1 ) ( y + 3 ) + 1 6 = 0 [ ( y − 1 ) ( y + 1 ) ] [ ( y − 3 ) ( y + 3 ) ] = − 1 6 ( y 2 − 1 ) ( y 2 − 9 ) = − 1 6 y 4 − 1 0 y 2 + 9 = − 1 6 y 4 − 1 0 y 2 + 2 5 = 0 ( y 2 − 5 ) 2 = 0
We have 2 double roots. One simplifying,
y 2 = 5 y = ± 5
Hence the equation has exactly 2 real roots.