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Algebra Difficulty 3.9 AMC 10/12 Find the answer

Let x\lfloor x \rfloor be the greatest integer less than or equal to xx. Then the number of real solutions to 4x240x+51=04x^2-40\lfloor x \rfloor +51=0 is

Pick one

Solution

We can rearrange the equation into 4x2=40x514x^2=40\lfloor x \rfloor-51. Obviously, the RHS is an integer, so 4x2=n4x^2=n for some integer nn. We can therefore make the substitution x=n2x=\frac{\sqrt{n}}{2} to get
40n251=n40\left\lfloor \frac{\sqrt{n}}{2}\right\rfloor-51=n
(We'll try the case where x=n2x=-\frac{\sqrt{n}}{2} later.) Now let $a\le\frac{\sqrt{n}}{2}0\]
The first inequality simplifies to (2a10)249(2a-10)^2\le 49, or 2a107|2a-10|\le 7. Since 2a102a-10 is even, we must have 2a106|2a-10|\le 6, so a53|a-5|\le 3. Therefore, 2a82\le a\le 8. The second inequality simplifies to (2a8)2>9(2a-8)^2 > 9, or 2a8>3|2a-8| > 3. Therefore, as 2a82a-8 is even, we have 2a84|2a-8|\ge 4, or a42|a-4|\ge 2. Hence a6a\ge 6 or a2a\le 2. Since both inequalities must be satisfied, we see that only a=2a=2, a=6a=6, a=7a=7, and a=8a=8 satisfy both inequalities. Each will lead to a distinct solution for nn, and thus for xx, for a total of 44 positive solutions.
Now let x=n2x=-\frac{\sqrt{n}}{2}. We have
40n251=n40\left\lfloor -\frac{\sqrt{n}}{2}\right\rfloor-51=n
Since x=x\lfloor -x\rfloor=-\lceil x\rceil, this can be rewritten as
40n251=n-40\left\lceil \frac{\sqrt{n}}{2}\right\rceil-51=n
Since nn is positive, the least possible value of n2\left\lceil \frac{\sqrt{n}}{2}\right\rceil is 11, hence 40n25191-40\left\lceil \frac{\sqrt{n}}{2}\right\rceil-51\le -91, i.e., it must be negative. But it is also equal to nn, which is positive, and this is a contradiction. Therefore, there are no negative roots.
The total number of roots to this equation is thus 44, or (E)\boxed{(\text{E})}.

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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.