Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 4.6 AIME Prove it United States

Problem:
Find all real numbers xx satisfying the equation x38=16x+13x^{3}-8=16 \sqrt[3]{x+1}.

Solution

Solution:
Let f(x)=x388f(x)=\frac{x^{3}-8}{8}. Then f1(x)=8x+83=2x+13f^{-1}(x)=\sqrt[3]{8x+8}=2\sqrt[3]{x+1}, and so the given equation is equivalent to f(x)=f1(x)f(x)=f^{-1}(x). This implies f(f(x))=xf(f(x))=x. However, as ff is monotonically increasing, this implies that f(x)=xf(x)=x.

As a result, we have
x388=xx38x8=0(x+2)(x22x4)=0, \frac{x^{3}-8}{8}=x \Longrightarrow x^{3}-8x-8=0 \Longrightarrow (x+2)\left(x^{2}-2x-4\right)=0,
and so x=2,1±5x=-2, 1 \pm \sqrt{5}.

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