Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Find the answer

Find all ordered pairs (a,b)(a, b) of complex numbers with a2+b20,a+10ba2+b2=5a^{2}+b^{2} \neq 0, a+\frac{10b}{a^{2}+b^{2}}=5, and b+10aa2+b2=4b+\frac{10a}{a^{2}+b^{2}}=4.

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

Solution

First, it is easy to see that ab0ab \neq 0. Thus, we can write 5ab=4ba=10a2+b2\frac{5-a}{b}=\frac{4-b}{a}=\frac{10}{a^{2}+b^{2}}. Then, we have 10a2+b2=4aaba2=5babb2=4a+5b2aba2+b2\frac{10}{a^{2}+b^{2}}=\frac{4a-ab}{a^{2}}=\frac{5b-ab}{b^{2}}=\frac{4a+5b-2ab}{a^{2}+b^{2}}. Therefore, 4a+5b2ab=104a+5b-2ab=10, so (2a5)(b2)=0(2a-5)(b-2)=0. Now we just plug back in and get the four solutions: (1,2),(4,2),(52,2±32i)(1,2),(4,2),\left(\frac{5}{2}, 2 \pm \frac{3}{2} i\right). It's not hard to check that they all work.

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