2019 AIME I Problems/Problem 8
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[hide]Problem 8
Let be a real number such that . Then where and are relatively prime positive integers. Find .
Solution 1
We can substitute . Since we know that , we can do some simplification.
This yields . From this, we can substitute again to get some cancellation through binomials. If we let , we can simplify the equation to . After using binomial theorem, this simplifies to . If we use the quadratic formula, we obtain the that , so . By plugging z into (which is equal to ), we can either use binomial theorem or sum of cubes to simplify, and we end up with . Therefore, the answer is .
-eric2020, inspired by Tommy2002
Solution 2
First, for simplicity, let and . Note that . We then bash the rest of the problem out. Take the tenth power of this expression and get . Note that we also have . So, it suffices to compute . Let . We have from cubing that or . Next, using , we get or . Solving gives or . Clearly is extraneous, so . Now note that , and . Thus we finally get , giving .
- Emathmaster
Solution 3 (Newton Sums)
Newton sums is basically constructing the powers of the roots of the polynomials instead of deconstructing them which was done in Solution . Let and be the roots of some polynomial . Then, by Vieta, for some .
Let . We want to find . Clearly and . Newton sums tells us that where for our polynomial .
Bashing, we have
Thus . Clearly, so .
Note . Solving for , we get . Finally, .
Solution 4
Factor the first equation. First of all, because We group the first, third, and fifth term and second and fourth term. The first group: The second group: Add the two together to make Because this equals , we have Let so we get Solving the quadratic gives us Because , we finally get .
Now from the second equation, Plug in to get which yields the answer
~ZericHang
Solution 5
Define the recursion We know that the characteristic equation of must have 2 roots, so we can recursively define as . is simply the sum of the roots of the characteristic equation, which is . is the product of the roots, which is . This value is not trivial and we have to solve for it. We know that , , . Solving the rest of the recursion gives \begin{align*} \end{align*}
Solving for in the expression for gives us , so . Since , we know that the minimum value it can attain is by AM-GM, so cannot be . Plugging in the value of into the expression for , we get . Our final answer is then
-Natmath
See Also
2019 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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