Think about the quadratic formula!

For some nonzero integers a a , b b , and c c , a 2 4 b c + b 2 4 c a + c 2 4 a b \sqrt{a^2-4bc}+\sqrt{b^2-4ca}+\sqrt{c^2-4ab} is also an integer.

How many triplets ( a , b , c ) (a,b,c) satisfies this?

3 0 Infinitely many 6 More than 6 but finitely many.

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.

2 solutions

Chris Lewis
May 22, 2019

We recognise b 2 4 a c b^2-4ac as the discriminant of the quadratic a x 2 + b x + c = 0 ax^2+bx+c=0 (and permutations of these). For a quadratic with integer coefficients, if the discriminant is the square of an integer, then the quadratic has rational roots, and vice-versa.

So we just need to make sure each of the quadratics a x 2 + b x + c = 0 ax^2+bx+c=0 , b x 2 + c x + a = 0 bx^2+cx+a=0 and c x 2 + a x + b = 0 cx^2+ax+b=0 has rational roots.

The sum of the roots of a quadratic with integer coefficients will always be rational. So if one of the roots is rational, the other one must be too.

All we need to do is ensure one of the roots of each of the quadratics is rational. But this is easy - just take a + b + c = 0 a+b+c=0 , and then x = 1 x=1 will be a root of all three of the equations. So any triple of non-zero integers satisfying a + b + c = 0 a+b+c=0 will work, and there are clearly infinitely many of these.

Incidentally, these are not the only triples that work - an example whose sum is not zero is ( a , b , c ) = ( 85 , 9 , 36 ) (a,b,c)=(-85,9,36) . I'd be interested if anyone could classify ALL valid triples!

Nice solution! I also wonder if there are infinite solutions when a + b + c a+b+c is not zero.

X X - 2 years ago

Log in to reply

Actually, if ( a , b , c ) (a,b,c) is a solution, then so is ( k a , k b , k c ) (ka,kb,kc) for any integer k k (so I only needed to find one solution, oops!). But there's still the question of "primitive" triples, where gcd ( a , b , c ) = 1 \gcd(a,b,c)=1 .

Chris Lewis - 2 years ago

Sir, can you please post a solution for this: https://brilliant.org/problems/confusing-question-no-way-out/

Jake Tricole - 2 years ago

Log in to reply

I was just looking at that problem. There are actually two good solutions there already - I don't think I can add much.

Chris Lewis - 2 years ago

one can explore and see that for a = 4 , b = c = 2 a=-4,b=c=2 we get an integer for the large expression. Then one needs to notice that if ( a , b , c ) (a,b,c) gives an integer for the expression, then so does ( t a , t b , t c ) (ta,tb,tc) , where t t is a non-zero integer.

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...