2019 AIME I Problems/Problem 8
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[hide]Problem
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
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
Solution 6
Let and , then and
Now factoring as solution 4 yields .
Since , .
Notice that can be rewritten as . Thus, and . As in solution 4, we get and
Substitute and , then , and the desired answer is
Solution 7 (Official MAA)
Let and let Then for Because and it follows that and Hence or and because the only possible value of is Therefore The requested sum is
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 | ||
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