Problem:
Suppose that and are real numbers such that the line intersects the graph of at two distinct points and . If the coordinates of the midpoint of are , compute .
Problem:
Suppose that and are real numbers such that the line intersects the graph of at two distinct points and . If the coordinates of the midpoint of are , compute .
Solution:
Let and . Since and are roots of with midpoint , (where the last equality follows by Vieta's formula).
Now, as (Vieta's formula), observe that
This means , so the answer is .
Solution:
As in the previous solution, let and and note .
Fixing , the -coordinate of the midpoint is when (and changing shifts the line up or down by its value). So, increasing by will make the midpoint have -coordinate , so the answer is .