Problem:
If you have an algorithm for finding all the real zeros of any cubic polynomial, how do you find the real solutions to , , where is a cubic polynomial?
Solution
Solution:
Let . Finding the solutions with is obvious, just solve the cubic .
For , we have .
Dividing by gives .
Put , and this becomes (*).
We also have , or .
Substituting for from (*) we get a cubic in . Solving, we then recover from (*) and then solve a quadratic to get from .
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