HSC 2014 MX2 Marathon ADVANCED (archive) (2 Viewers)

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RealiseNothing

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

I got:



Notice that the answer should be 0 for n=1.
Ah right, I probs summed up the series I obtained slightly wrong. This may be influenced by the 18th I was at tonight.

My logic was:



Where is the probability that after flipping it times we are back to the original side.

I then just summed this using a recursive relation.
 

seanieg89

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

Ah right, I probs summed up the series I obtained slightly wrong. This may be influenced by the 18th I was at tonight.

My logic was:



Where is the probability that after flipping it times we are back to the original side.

I then just summed this using a recursive relation.
Your recurrence is right, but your solution to it wasn't.

Don't drink and derive! (But actually do, it is the best.)
 

Sy123

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level



EDIT: disregard
 
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seanieg89

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

I don't think this is actually known to be true or false.

Eg (x^2+1)^2 is reducible over the integers, but it is not known (and regarded to be a rather difficult problem) whether or not there are infinitely many primes of the form n^2+1.

We only have this sort of result for linear polynomials atm (Dirichlet's theorem on primes in arithmetic progression), and even this proof is not easy.

Am I misinterpreting?
 

Sy123

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

I don't think this is actually known to be true or false.

Eg (x^2+1)^2 is reducible over the integers, but it is not known (and regarded to be a rather difficult problem) whether or not there are infinitely many primes of the form n^2+1.

We only have this sort of result for linear polynomials atm (Dirichlet's theorem on primes in arithmetic progression), and even this proof is not easy.

Am I misinterpreting?
My bad my wording is wrong

 

aDimitri

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

By subbing x = sqrt(x) you get a polynomial with roots r1^2, r2^2... etc.
By expanding Q(r1)*Q(r2)*...*Q(r5). You get an expansion in terms of r1^2 r2^2 etc.
This is in terms of the coefficients of the new polynomial. But I dont have paper here so I cant get the number atm because I cbb without paper. Questions is probs a bit easy for the advanced thread!!

edit:
answer = 9
 
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seanieg89

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

By subbing x = sqrt(x) you get a polynomial with roots r1^2, r2^2... etc.
By expanding Q(r1)*Q(r2)*...*Q(r5). You get an expansion in terms of r1^2 r2^2 etc.
This is in terms of the coefficients of the new polynomial. But I dont have paper here so I cant get the number atm because I cbb without paper. Questions is probs a bit easy for the advanced thread!!

edit:
answer = 9
You have constructed one polynomial to make your life easier, why not another? Make the substitution x->x+2 after your first construction and you have a polynomial with roots rj^2-2. You don't even need to expand it to compute what the question is asking, just find it's constant coefficient giving you the product of roots.
 

aDimitri

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

You have constructed one polynomial to make your life easier, why not another? Make the substitution x->x+2 after your first construction and you have a polynomial with roots rj^2-2. You don't even need to expand it to compute what the question is asking, just find it's constant coefficient giving you the product of roots.
wow. i can't believe i didn't see that...
 

aDimitri

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

probs made a mistake expanding, no way i'm going to look where hahaha
 

Sy123

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

 

Sy123

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

 

seanieg89

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

ABCD is a quadrilateral. A line AF parallel to BC meets BD at F. A line BE parallel to AD meets AC at E. Prove that EF is parallel to CD.


A mathematics Extension 2 state ranker from last year couldn't complete this question (well I guess with enough he could have) so i can guarantee this one's difficulty
It's just similar triangles:

Alternate angles tells us:



and



This implies:



Therefore:



(equal angle and adjacent sides have a common ratio.)

Finally, this similarity gives us by corresponding angles that .
 
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mathing

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

Nice Sean! Please post the alternative solution to continuing f for x < 0.

It's just similar triangles:

Alternate angles tells us:



and



This implies:



Therefore:



(equal angle and adjacent sides have a common ratio.)

Finally, this similarity gives us by corresponding angles that .
 

mathing

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

Not sure if this is what you are looking for but we can apply the tan addition formula to get



You can also see the last fraction is the definition of the two derivatives at u = 0.

 
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seanieg89

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

Nice Sean! Please post the alternative solution to continuing f for x < 0.
For x < 0, define f(x) = af(-x) + bf(-2x)+cf(-3x) (*) for some undetermined constants a,b,c.

It is clear that this will satisfy the differentiability and boundedness assumptions of f for positive x, just by the laws of how differentiation behaves with respect to addition, constant multiplication, and composition. This means that the only thing to worry about is how the definitions of f for positive x and negative x "match up" at 0.

If we let x -> 0- in (*) and use continuity, we get f(0) = (a+b+c)f(0).

Similarly, since we have differentiability, we can differentiate (*) (at least twice) and then use continuity of derivatives to get:

f'(0) = (-a-2b-3c)f'(0).

f''(0) = (a+4b+9c)f''(0).

Now if we choose our a,b,c to satisfy the simultaneous equations:

a+b+c = 1
-a-2b-3c = 1
a+4b+9c = 1

(this is a short exercise in simultaneous equations, but I cbb doing it again right now) then from the earlier discussion the function and its first two derivatives will match up continuously, and we are done.
 

seanieg89

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Re: HSC 2014 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

Please tell us the solution!
Suppose to the contrary that f IS reducible over Z and f = gh is one such expression with deg(g) > n/2 > deg(h). Note that we can assume strict inequality of degrees because their sum is deg(f) = n which is odd. This turns out to be key.

g(aj)h(aj) = -1 for each j, but since both of these polynomials has integer coefficients, both of these factors must be integers. That implies that for each j we either have:

I) g(aj) = 1 h(aj) = -1

or

II) g(aj) = -1 h(aj) = 1.

One of these must occur strictly more often than the other (again as n is odd), and so we have h(x) = c for some c (either 1 or -1, we don't really care) and at least n/2 > deg(h) different values of x. But this is a contradiction, as the definition of reducibility (Sy forgot to mention this ) requires that the two factor polynomials are non-constant, and no non-constant polynomial can assume the same value as many times as (its degree + 1) for the same reason that no non-constant polynomial can have more roots than its degree.

So we are done.
 
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