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Algebra Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it Ibero-American Mathematical Olympiad

Problem:

Show that the roots r,s,tr, s, t of the equation x(x2)(3x7)=2x(x-2)(3x-7)=2 are real and positive. Find tan1r+tan1s+tan1t\tan^{-1} r + \tan^{-1} s + \tan^{-1} t.

Solution

Solution:

Put f(x)=x(x2)(3x7)2=3x313x2+14x2f(x) = x(x-2)(3x-7) - 2 = 3x^{3} - 13x^{2} + 14x - 2. Then f(0)=2f(0) = -2, f(1)=2f(1) = 2, so there is a root between 00 and 11. f(2)=2f(2) = -2, so there is another root between 11 and 22. f(3)=4f(3) = 4, so the third root is between 22 and 33. f(x)=0f(x) = 0 has three roots, so they are all real and positive.

We have tan(a+b+c)=tana+tanb+tanctanatanbtanc1(tanatanb+tanbtanc+tanctana)\tan(a + b + c) = \dfrac{\tan a + \tan b + \tan c - \tan a \tan b \tan c}{1 - (\tan a \tan b + \tan b \tan c + \tan c \tan a)}. So putting a=tan1ra = \tan^{-1} r, b=tan1sb = \tan^{-1} s, c=tan1tc = \tan^{-1} t, we have

tan(a+b+c)=(r+s+t)rst1(rs+st+tr)=13/32/3114/3=11/311/3=1. \tan(a + b + c) = \frac{(r + s + t) - rst}{1 - (rs + st + tr)} = \frac{13/3 - 2/3}{1 - 14/3} = \frac{11/3}{-11/3} = -1.

So a+b+c=π/4+kπa + b + c = -\pi/4 + k\pi. But we know that each of r,s,tr, s, t is real and positive, so a+b+ca + b + c lies in the range 00 to 3π/23\pi/2. Hence a+b+c=3π/4a + b + c = 3\pi/4.

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