A monic quartic polynomial has real coefficients and of its roots are and where and is a real constant. When the roots are graphed in the Complex Plane , the area of the figure is HALF the -intercept of . If the coefficient of the term of can be represented as where and are reals, determine the value of
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Since x = cos θ + i sin θ and x = sin θ + i cos θ are roots, then x = cos θ − i sin θ and x = sin θ − i cos θ are also roots for there to be real coefficients for P ( x ) . The y -intercept of P ( x ) is the product of the 4 roots which is ( cos 2 θ + sin 2 θ ) 2 which is 1 . When the roots are graphed onto the complex plane, a Trapezoid can be formed with bases 2 cos θ and 2 sin θ and height sin θ − cos θ since sin θ > cos θ . The area of the Trapezoid comes out to be sin 2 θ − cos 2 θ which is half the y -intercept of P ( x ) or 0 . 5 . Thus, 1 − 2 cos 2 θ = 0 . 5 . Solving this yields cos θ = 0 . 5 and sin θ = 0 . 5 3 as sin θ > cos θ > 0 . The coefficient of the x 3 term is the negative of the sum of roots which is − 2 cos θ − 2 sin θ or − 1 − 3 . Thus, a = − 1 and b = 3 so 2 ( − 1 ) − 3 ( 3 ) + 1 8 = 7 which is the final answer.