2007 AIME I Problems/Problem 8
Problem
The polynomial is cubic. What is the largest value of
for which the polynomials
and
are both factors of
?
Solution
Solution 1
We can see that and
must have a root in common for them to both be factors of the same cubic.
Let this root be .
We then know that is a root of
, so
.
We then know that is a root of
so we get:
or
, so
is the highest.
We can trivially check into the original equations to find that produces a root in common, so the answer is
.
Solution 2
Again, let the common root be ; let the other two roots be
and
. We can write that
and that
.
Therefore, we can write four equations (and we have four variables), ,
,
, and
.
The first two equations show that . The last two equations show that
. Solving these show that
and that
. Substituting back into the equations, we eventually find that
See also
2007 AIME I (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 7 |
Followed by Problem 9 | |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 | ||
All AIME Problems and Solutions |
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