Denesting Ramanujan!

Calculus Level 3

How many positive real solutions are there of the above equation?

0 Infinitely many 1 2

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1 solution

Tijmen Veltman
Aug 30, 2014

Squaring both sides:

x 2 + 2 x + 1 = 1 + x 1 + ( x + 1 ) 1 + ( x + 2 ) 1 + x + 2 = 1 + ( x + 1 ) 1 + ( x + 2 ) 1 + x^2+2x+1=1+x\sqrt{1+(x+1)\sqrt{1+(x+2)\sqrt{1+\ldots}}}\\ x+2=\sqrt{1+(x+1)\sqrt{1+(x+2)\sqrt{1+\ldots}}}

which is the original equation with x x replaced by x + 1 x+1 . This means that if x x is a solution, then so is x + 1 x+1 . We can see that x = 0 x=0 is a solution by simple substitution in the original formula, hence every natural number is a solution. The answer is therefore infinitely many \boxed{\text{infinitely many}} .

Same approach

Ronak Agarwal - 6 years, 8 months ago

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