For how many positive integers does the polynomial have an integer root?
Solution
Let be the roots of . By Vieta's, we have . Note that if one root is an integer, then both roots must be integers, as they sum to an integer . Then, Because we require to be both integers, we have , which yields . If or , then , but we want to be a positive integer. Therefore, our only possibility is when , which yields , so there is exactly 1 value of (namely, ) such that has an integer root.
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