Problem:
Let , , be integers. Define . Suppose there exist pairwise distinct integers , , such that , , and . Find the maximum possible value of the discriminant of .
Solution
Solution:
Answer:
By the factor theorem, , so the constraints essentially boil down to . (It's not so important that ; we merely specified it for a shorter problem statement.)
We want to maximize the discriminant . Clearly . If , then means the difference is less than , whereas if , since at least one of and equals , the difference of factors is greater than .
So the optimal choice occurs either for and , or and . The latter wins, giving a discriminant of .
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