Problem:
Find, with proof, all nonconstant polynomials with real coefficients such that, for all nonzero real numbers with and , we have
Problem:
Find, with proof, all nonconstant polynomials with real coefficients such that, for all nonzero real numbers with and , we have
Solution:
It is straightforward to plug in and verify the above answers. Hence, we focus on showing that these are all possible solutions. The key claim is the following.
Claim: If is a root of with multiplicity , then is also a root of with multiplicity .
Proof 1 (Elementary). Let be the multiplicity of . It suffices to show that because we can apply the same assertion on to obtain that .
To that end, suppose that divides . From the equation, we have
where to guarantee that both sides are polynomial. Notice that the factor and the right-hand side is divisible by , so must also divide . This means that there exists a polynomial such that . Replacing with , we get
implying that is divisible by .
Proof 2 (Complex Analysis). Here is more advanced proof of the main claim.
View both sides of the equations as meromorphic functions in the complex plane. Then, a root with multiplicity of is a pole of of order . Since the right-hand side is analytic around , it follows that the other term has a pole at with order as well. By replacing with , we find that has a pole at of order . This finishes the claim.
The claim implies that there exists an integer and a constant such that
By replacing with , we get that
Therefore, . Moreover, using the main equation, we get that
This is a polynomial if and only if and or and , so we are done.