Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it Bulgaria

Problem:
Find all values of the real parameter aa such that the number of the solutions of the equation
3(5x2a4)2x=2a2(6x1) 3\left(5 x^{2}-a^{4}\right)-2 x=2 a^{2}(6 x-1)
does not exceed the number of the solutions of the equation
2x3+6x=(36a9)28a16(3a1)212x 2 x^{3}+6 x=\left(3^{6 a}-9\right) \sqrt{2^{8 a}-\frac{1}{6}}-(3 a-1)^{2} 12^{x}

Solution

Solution:
The first equation is quadratic with discriminant D=(9a21)2D=(9 a^{2}-1)^{2}. Therefore it has two different solutions for a±13a \neq \pm \frac{1}{3} and exactly one solution for a=±13a= \pm \frac{1}{3}.

Since the function
2x3+6x+(3a1)212x 2 x^{3}+6 x+(3 a-1)^{2} 12^{x}
is strictly increasing, the second equation has at most one solution. For a=13a=\frac{1}{3} it has solution x=0x=0, while for a=13a=-\frac{1}{3} it is not defined. Finally, the only value of aa which satisfies the condition, is a=13a=\frac{1}{3}.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.