Consider all polynomials P c ( x ) = x 3 − 2 x 2 − 4 x + c which have 3 real roots. The difference between the maximum possible root of such a polynomial, and the minimum possible roots of such a polynomial, can be expressed as b a for positive coprime integers. Find a + b .
Note: The value of c need not be identical in the maximum and minimum cases.
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.
Rearranging the equation − c = x 3 − 2 x 2 − 4 x ,now we can easily plot RHS
As c is real, It can easily be seen from graph,that the maximum value of x for 3 solutions N o t n e c e s s a r i l y d i s t i n c t is 3 1 0 and minimum value is − 2
Therefore 3 1 0 + 2 = 9 1 6
The problem doesn't make it clear that c is allowed to vary between finding the maximum and the minimum. If the problem was written as P c , then I would be inclined to agree with your approach.
Problem Loading...
Note Loading...
Set Loading...
The maximum and minimum values can be attained by changing the value of c such that one of the turning points on the graph is on the x-axis. That is to say, the graph is tangent to the x-axis and two of the roots are equal.
So, let x , x and y be the roots of the equation for local minima and maxima. (Maxima and minima are attained when two of the roots are equal. By vieta's formulas,
2 x + y = 2
Then, by Newton's Sums,
2 x 2 + y 2 = 1 2
Solving the systems gives us y = ( 3 1 0 , − 2 ) So, the minimum is − 2 and the maximum is 3 1 0
So, 3 1 0 − ( − 2 ) = 3 1 6
So, our answer is 1 6 + 3 = 1 9