Problem:
Given the polynomial , we consider the polynomial given by the composition of with itself 2024 times. How many integers are there such that ?
Problem:
Given the polynomial , we consider the polynomial given by the composition of with itself 2024 times. How many integers are there such that ?
Pick one
Solution:
The answer is . Let us call the polynomial obtained by composing the polynomial with itself times, so that . It is clear that is a polynomial with integer coefficients. Since for we have and since the only solutions to the equation are given by , and , we have that if and only if .
We observe that the equation has no integer solutions, while (resp. ) has as its only solution (resp. ); therefore, for we have if and only if .
Finally, since has no integer solutions, we have that for the equation has no solutions and therefore if and only if .
Summing up the above, for , we have that holds if and only if . Concatenating this implication enough times, we obtain that if and only if , which can easily be verified to have as solutions .