Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Let aa, bb, cc be nonzero real numbers such that a+b+c=0a+b+c=0 and a3+b3+c3=a5+b5+c5a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3}=a^{5}+b^{5}+c^{5}. Find the value of a2+b2+c2a^{2}+b^{2}+c^{2}.

Solution

Solution:
Let σ1=a+b+c\sigma_{1}=a+b+c, σ2=ab+bc+ca\sigma_{2}=ab+bc+ca and σ3=abc\sigma_{3}=abc be the three elementary symmetric polynomials. Since a3+b3+c3a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3} is a symmetric polynomial, it can be written as a polynomial in σ1\sigma_{1}, σ2\sigma_{2} and σ3\sigma_{3}. Now, observe that σ1=0\sigma_{1}=0, and so we only need to worry about the terms not containing σ1\sigma_{1}. By considering the degrees of the terms, we see that the only possibility is σ3\sigma_{3}. That is, a3+b3+c3=kσ3a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3}=k \sigma_{3} for some constant kk. By setting a=b=1a=b=1, c=2c=-2, we see that k=3k=3.

By similar reasoning, we find that a5+b5+c5=hσ2σ3a^{5}+b^{5}+c^{5}=h \sigma_{2} \sigma_{3} for some constant hh. By setting a=b=1a=b=1 and c=2c=-2, we get h=5h=-5.

So, we now know that a+b+c=0a+b+c=0 implies
a3+b3+c3=3abcanda5+b5+c5=5abc(ab+bc+ca) a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3}=3abc \quad \text{and} \quad a^{5}+b^{5}+c^{5}=-5abc(ab+bc+ca)
Then a3+b3+c3=a5+b5+c5a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3}=a^{5}+b^{5}+c^{5} implies that 3abc=5abc(ab+bc+ca)3abc=-5abc(ab+bc+ca). Given that aa, bb, cc are nonzero, we get ab+bc+ca=35ab+bc+ca=-\frac{3}{5}.

Then, a2+b2+c2=(a+b+c)22(ab+bc+ca)=022(35)=65a^{2}+b^{2}+c^{2}=(a+b+c)^{2}-2(ab+bc+ca)=0^{2}-2\left(-\frac{3}{5}\right)=\frac{6}{5}.

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