AlgebraDifficulty 7.4National olympiad, round 2Find the answer
Determine each real root of x4−(2⋅1010+1)x2−x+1020+1010−1=0 correct to four decimal places.
A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.
Solution
The equation can be re-written as (x+10 5) 2(x-10 5) 2 -(x+10 5)(x-10 5) -x-1=0. We first prove that the equation has no negative roots. Let x≤0. The equation above can be further re-arranged as [(x+105)(x−105)+1][(x+105)(x−105)−2]=x−1. The right hand side of the equation is negative. Therefore [(x+105)(x−105)+1][(x+105)(x−105)−2)]<0, and we have −1<(x+105)(x−105)<2. Then the left hand side of the equation is bounded by ∣[(x+105)(x−105)+1][(x+105)(x−105)−2]∣≤3×3. However, since ∣(x+105)(x−105)∣≤2 and x<0, it follows that ∣x+105∣<∣x−105∣2<2×10−5 for negative x. Then x<2×10−5−105. The right hand side of the equation is then a large negative number. It cannot be equal to the left hand side which is bounded by 9. Now let x>0. When x=105, the left hand side of equation (1) is negative. Therefore the equation has real roots on both side of 105 , as its leading coefficient is positive. We will prove that x=105 is a good approximation of the roots (within 10−2 ). In fact, we can solve the "quadratic" equation (1) for (x+105)(x−105) : (x+105)(x−105)=21±1+4(x+1). Then x−105=2(x+105)1±1+4(x+1). Easy to see that ∣x−105∣<1 for positve x. Therefore, 105−1<x<105+1. Then ∣x−105∣=2(x+105)1±1+4(x+1)≤2(x+105)1+2(x+105)1+4(x+1)≤2(105−1+105)1+2(105−1+105)1+4(105+1+1)<10−2. Let x1 be a root of the equation with x1<105. Then 0<105−x1<10−2 and x1−105=2(x1+105)1−1+4(x1+1). An aproximation of x1 is defined as follows: x~1=105+2(105+105)1−1+4(105+1). We check the error of the estimate: ∣x~1−x1∣=2(105+105)1−1+4(105+1)−2(x1+105)1−1+4(x1+1)≤2(105+105)1−2(x1+105)1+2(105+105)1+4(105+1)−2(x1+105)1+4(x1+1). The first absolute value 2(105+105)1−2(x1+105)1=2(105+105)(x1+105)∣x1−105∣<10−12. The second absolute value 2(105+105)1+4(105+1)−2(x1+105)1+4(x1+1)≤2(105+105)1+4(105+1)−2(105+105)1+4(x1+1)+2(105+105)1+4(x1+1)−2(x1+105)1+4(x1+1)≤10−7+10−9, through a rationalized numerator.Therefore ∣x~1−x1∣≤10−6. For a real root x2 with x2>105, we choose x~2=105+2(105+105)1+1+4(105+1). We can similarly prove it has the desired approximation.
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