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Algebra Difficulty 5.0 AIME Find the answer

Let a,b,ca, b, c be nonzero real numbers such that a+b+c=0a+b+c=0 and a3+b3+c3=a5+b5+c5a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3}=a^{5}+b^{5}+c^{5}. Find the value of a2+b2+c2a^{2}+b^{2}+c^{2}.

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

Let σ1=a+b+c,σ2=ab+bc+ca\sigma_{1}=a+b+c, \sigma_{2}=ab+bc+ca and σ3=abc\sigma_{3}=abc be the three elementary symmetric polynomials. Since a3+b3+c3a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3} is a symmetric polynomial, it can be written as a polynomial in σ1,σ2\sigma_{1}, \sigma_{2} and σ3\sigma_{3}. Now, observe that σ1=0\sigma_{1}=0, and so we only need to worry about the terms not containing σ1\sigma_{1}. By considering the degrees of the terms, we see that the only possibility is σ3\sigma_{3}. That is, a3+b3+c3=kσ3a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3}=k\sigma_{3} for some constant kk. By setting a=b=1,c=2a=b=1, c=-2, we see that k=3k=3. By similar reasoning, we find that a5+b5+c5=hσ2σ3a^{5}+b^{5}+c^{5}=h\sigma_{2}\sigma_{3} for some constant hh. By setting a=b=1a=b=1 and c=2c=-2, we get h=5h=-5. So, we now know that a+b+c=0a+b+c=0 implies a3+b3+c3=3abc and a5+b5+c5=5abc(ab+bc+ca)a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3}=3abc \quad \text { and } \quad a^{5}+b^{5}+c^{5}=-5abc(ab+bc+ca) Then a3+b3+c3=a5+b5+c5a^{3}+b^{3}+c^{3}=a^{5}+b^{5}+c^{5} implies that 3abc=5abc(ab+bc+ca)3abc=-5abc(ab+bc+ca). Given that a,b,ca, b, c are nonzero, we get ab+bc+ca=35ab+bc+ca=-\frac{3}{5}. Then, a2+b2+c2=(a+b+c)22(ab+bc+ca)=65a^{2}+b^{2}+c^{2}=(a+b+c)^{2}-2(ab+bc+ca)=\frac{6}{5}.

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