1983 AIME Problems/Problem 5
Problem
Suppose that the sum of the squares of two complex numbers and
is
and the sum of the cubes is
. What is the largest real value that
can have?
Solutions
Solution 1
One way to solve this problem seems to be by substitution.
and
Because we are only left with and
, substitution won't be too bad. Let
and
.
We get and
Because we want the largest possible , let's find an expression for
in terms of
.
.
Substituting, . Factored,
(the Rational Root Theorem may be used here, along with synthetic division)
The largest possible solution is therefore .
Solution 2
An alternate way to solve this is to let and
.
Because we are looking for a value of that is real, we know that
, and thus
.
Expanding will give two equations, since the real and imaginary parts must match up.
Looking at the imaginary part of that equation, , so
, and
and
are actually complex conjugates.
Looking at the real part of the equation and plugging in ,
, or
.
Now, evaluating the real part of , which equals
(ignoring the odd powers of
, since they would not result in something in the form of
):
Since we know that , it can be plugged in for
in the above equataion to yield:
Since the problem is looking for to be a positive integer, only positive half-integers (and whole-integers) need to be tested. From the Rational Roots theorem,
all fail, but
does work. Thus, the real part of both numbers is
, and their sum is
See Also
1983 AIME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 4 |
Followed by Problem 6 | |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 | ||
All AIME Problems and Solutions |