Let be a complex number. In the complex plane, the distance from to 1 is 2 , and the distance from to 1 is 6 . What is the real part of ?
Solution
Note that we must have and \left|z^{2}-1\right|=6|z+1|=\frac{\left|z^{2}-1\right|}{|z-1|}=3zzz, 1,-12,3,32,2,3 by standard techniques, so the length of the altitude from to the real axis is \frac{3 \sqrt{7}}{4} \cdot \frac{2}{2}=\frac{3 \sqrt{7}}{4}z by the Pythagorean Theorem. It is clear that has positive imaginary part as the distance from to -1 is greater than the distance from to 1 , so the distance from 0 to the foot from to the real axis is . This is exactly the real part of that we are trying to compute.
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