Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 4.7 AIME Prove it Philippines

Problem:
Find all real numbers xx that satisfies
x4+x+1x4+x2x4=x4+1x4+x24 \frac{x^{4}+x+1}{x^{4}+x^{2}-x-4}=\frac{x^{4}+1}{x^{4}+x^{2}-4}

Solution

Solution:
Let f(x)=x4+x+1f(x)=x^{4}+x+1 and g(x)=x4+x2x4g(x)=x^{4}+x^{2}-x-4. The equation is then equivalent to
f(x)g(x)=f(x)xg(x)+xx(f(x)+g(x))=0 \frac{f(x)}{g(x)}=\frac{f(x)-x}{g(x)+x} \Longleftrightarrow x(f(x)+g(x))=0
Hence, x=0x=0 or f(x)+g(x)=2x4+x23=(2x2+3)(x21)=0f(x)+g(x)=2x^{4}+x^{2}-3=(2x^{2}+3)(x^{2}-1)=0 which gives 1,0,1-1,0,1 as acceptable values of xx.

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