How many pairs of real numbers satisfy both equations and ?
Pick one
Solution
The answer is (B). Subtracting the equations from each other we obtain
from which we see that at least one of the two equalities and must hold. If , substituting into the equations given in the statement we obtain , from which we easily find the three solutions . If instead then necessarily must hold. This last equation can be rewritten as , which clearly has no solutions (since at least one of the three numbers is different from zero). There are therefore exactly three solutions, all with .
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