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Algebra Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Prove it

302. Prove that the polynomial x200y200+1x^{200} y^{200}+1 cannot be represented as a product f(x)g(y)f(x) \cdot g(y) of two polynomials: one in the variable xx and one in the variable yy.

Solution

302. Let the polynomials f(x)f(x) and g(y)g(y) have free terms a0a_{0} (i.e., f(x)a0+a1x++anxnf(x) \equiv a_{0} + a_{1} x + \ldots + a_{n} x^{n}) and b0b_{0}. Set the variable xx to 0 in the equation x200y200+1f(x)g(y)x^{200} y^{200} + 1 \equiv f(x) g(y); then we get a0g(y)1a_{0} g(y) \equiv 1, i.e., g(y)=1a0g(y) = \frac{1}{a_{0}}; thus, g(y)g(y) equals 1a0\frac{1}{a_{0}} for all yy, i.e., it is a constant 1a0\frac{1}{a_{0}} (a polynomial of degree zero). Similarly, it can be shown that f(x)=1b0f(x) = \frac{1}{b_{0}}, i.e., f(x)g(y)=1a0b0x200y200+1f(x) g(y) = \frac{1}{a_{0} b_{0}} \neq x^{200} y^{200} + 1. The obtained contradiction proves the statement of the problem.

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Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.