Olympiad Maths Prep

Track / Stage 4 / 166 of 340 #426 of 2000

Problem 426

AMC 12 late, AIME early
Algebra Difficulty 4.8 Find the answer HMMT_2

Find all real numbers xx satisfying the equation x38=16x+13x^{3}-8=16 \sqrt[3]{x+1}.

Official solution

Let f(x)=x388f(x)=\frac{x^{3}-8}{8}. Then f1(x)=8x+83=2x+13f^{-1}(x)=\sqrt[3]{8x+8}=2\sqrt[3]{x+1}, and so the given equation is equivalent to f(x)=f1(x)f(x)=f^{-1}(x). This implies f(f(x))=xf(f(x))=x. However, as ff is monotonically increasing, this implies that f(x)=xf(x)=x. As a result, we have x388=xx38x8=0(x+2)(x22x4)=0\frac{x^{3}-8}{8}=x \Longrightarrow x^{3}-8x-8=0 \Longrightarrow(x+2)\left(x^{2}-2x-4\right)=0, and so x=2,1±5x=-2,1 \pm \sqrt{5}.

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