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Algebra Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Find the answer

Let f(x)=2x32xf(x)=2 x^{3}-2 x. For what positive values of aa do there exist distinct b,c,db, c, d such that (a,f(a))(a, f(a)), (b,f(b)),(c,f(c)),(d,f(d))(b, f(b)),(c, f(c)),(d, f(d)) is a rectangle?

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Solution

Say we have four points (a,f(a)),(b,f(b)),(c,f(c)),(d,f(d))(a, f(a)),(b, f(b)),(c, f(c)),(d, f(d)) on the curve which form a rectangle. If we interpolate a cubic through these points, that cubic will be symmetric around the center of the rectangle. But the unique cubic through the four points is f(x)f(x), and f(x)f(x) has only one point of symmetry, the point (0,0)(0,0) So every rectangle with all four points on f(x)f(x) is of the form (a,f(a)),(b,f(b)),(a,f(a)),(b,f(b))(a, f(a)),(b, f(b)),(-a, f(-a)),(-b, f(-b)), and without loss of generality we let a,b>0a, b>0. Then for any choice of aa and bb these points form a parallelogram, which is a rectangle if and only if the distance from (a,f(a))(a, f(a)) to (0,0)(0,0) is equal to the distance from (b,f(b))(b, f(b)) to (0,0)(0,0). Let g(x)=x2+(f(x))2=4x68x4+5x2g(x)=x^{2}+(f(x))^{2}=4 x^{6}-8 x^{4}+5 x^{2}, and consider g(x)g(x) restricted to x0x \geq 0. We are looking for all the values of aa such that g(x)=g(a)g(x)=g(a) has solutions other than aa. Note that g(x)=h(x2)g(x)=h\left(x^{2}\right) where h(x)=4x38x2+5xh(x)=4 x^{3}-8 x^{2}+5 x. This polynomial h(x)h(x) has a relative maximum of 1 at x=12x=\frac{1}{2} and a relative minimum of 25/2725 / 27 at x=56x=\frac{5}{6}. Thus the polynomial h(x)h(1/2)h(x)-h(1 / 2) has the double root 1/21 / 2 and factors as (4x24x+1)(x1)(4 x^{2}-4 x+1)(x-1), the largest possible value of a2a^{2} for which h(x2)=h(a2)h\left(x^{2}\right)=h\left(a^{2}\right) is a2=1a^{2}=1, or a=1a=1. The smallest such value is that which evaluates to 25/2725 / 27 other than 5/65 / 6, which is similarly found to be a2=1/3a^{2}=1 / 3, or a=33a=\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3}. Thus, for aa in the range 33a1\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3} \leq a \leq 1 the equation g(x)=g(a)g(x)=g(a) has nontrivial solutions and hence an inscribed rectangle exists.

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