2021 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 22
Problem
Suppose that the roots of the polynomial are
and
, where angles are in radians. What is
?
Solution
Part 1: solving for c
Notice that
is the negation of the product of roots by Vieta's formulas
Multiply by
Then use sine addition formula backwards:
Part 2: starting to solve for b
is the sum of roots two at a time by Vieta's
We know that
By plugging all the parts in we get:
Which ends up being:
Which is shown in the next part to equal , so
Part 3: solving for a and b as the sum of roots
is the negation of the sum of roots
The real values of the 7th roots of unity are: and they sum to
.
If we subtract 1, and condense identical terms, we get:
Therefore, we have
Finally multiply or $\boxed{D) \frac{1}{32}$ (Error compiling LaTeX. Unknown error_msg).
~Tucker
See also
2021 AMC 12A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | |
Preceded by Problem 21 |
Followed by Problem 23 |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 | |
All AMC 12 Problems and Solutions |
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