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Vieta's Formula Quadratics
Topics
Vieta's formula relates the coefficients of polynomials to the sum and
Vieta's Formula Forming Quadratics
Algebra products of their roots, as well as the products taken in groups.
Geometry Vieta's Formula Higher Degrees
Number Theory
For example, if there is a quadratic polynomial , it Vieta's Formula Problem Solving
will have roots of and , because
Calculus
. Vieta's formula can directly
Combinatorics
find the sum of the roots ( ) and the product of the roots Relevant For...
Basic Mathematics . While this is fairly trivial in this specific example, Algebra Vieta's Formula
Logic Vieta's formula is extremely useful in more complicated algebraic
Classical Mechanics polynomials with many roots or when the roots of a polynomial are not
Electricity and Magnetism
easy to derive. For some problems, Vieta's formula can serve as a shortcut to find solutions quickly knowing the sums or
products of their roots.
Computer Science
Quantitative Finance
Chemistry
Contents
SAT® Math
JEE Math Vieta's Formula Quadratics
Vieta's Formula Forming Quadratics
Generalization to Higher Degree Polynomials
Problem Solving Basic
Problem Solving Intermediate
Problem Solving Advanced
Vieta Root Jumping
See Also
Vieta's Formula Quadratics Edit
Let's start with a definition.
DEFI NI TI ON
Vieta's Formula for Quadratics:
The proof of this statement is given at the end of this section.
We immediately see how the coefficients of a quadratic help to determine the relationship of the roots.
EXAMPLE
1.
2.
3. ?
1. From Vieta's formula, we recognize that .
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2. From Vieta's formula, we recognize that .
3. Vieta's formula doesn't tell us the value of directly. What we need to do, is to write in
terms of and/or , and we can then substitute these values in. We have
EXAMPLE
Can you quickly guess the roots of the quadratic ?
EXAMPLE
You may recognize from the Quadratic Formula. In fact, we can show that
which proves the quadratic formula.
PROOF
Vieta's Formula Forming Quadratics Edit
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Why monic? Because we can always divide the whole equation by its leading coefficient to get a monic version of it. So
what can we say about ? Since and are the roots of this equation, we can factorize the equation as
Expanding the right side and rearranging, we find
Since two polynomials are equal if and only if their coefficients are equal, by equating the coefficients we get
This is the so called Vieta's formula for a quadratic polynomial. It can be similarly extended to polynomials of higher
degree.
EXAMPLE
Find a quadratic whose roots are and .
Therefore the desired quadratic is .
EXAMPLE
Find a quadratic whose roots are and .
So the desired quadratic is .
Note: Since the roots were complex conjugates of each other, the coefficients of the quadratic became real.
EXAMPLE
Solve the system of equations
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Generalization to Higher Degree Polynomials Edit
Consider a quadratic equation with complex coefficients and roots , :
By comparing coefficients, we can see that
This gives a relationship between the roots of a polynomial and the coefficients of the polynomial. Generalizing this idea
for a polynomial of degree , we have
DEFI NI TI ON
Vieta's Formula:
The expressions on the left hand side of Vieta's formula are the elementary symmetric functions of . The
proof of Vieta's formula follows by comparing coefficients in the equation
As in the quadratic case, Vieta's formula gives an equation to find the sum of roots:
Similarly, we have the following equation for the product of roots:
Vieta's formula gives relationships between polynomial roots and coefficients that are often useful in problem solving.
EXAMPLE
EXAMPLE
which implies
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Note that this also shows that since the left hand side is the sum of squares of real numbers.
Since , this implies . Also by Vieta's formula, . Then by the AMGM
inequality, we have , implying . We can then enumerate all such polynomials to find the
Search wiki pages and problems
solutions are , , and .
EXAMPLE
In this problem, the application of Vieta's formulas is not immediately obvious, and the expression has to be
transformed. From Factorization 4, we have
Now we only need to know how to calculate . Again, from factorization, we have
which allows us to conclude that
Problem Solving Basic Edit
TRY I T YOURSELF
EXAMPLE
Find all triples of complex numbers which satisfy the following system of equations:
EXAMPLE
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The expression is equal to . By Vieta's Formula, we know that
so
Note: A common approach would be to try and find each root of the polynomial, especially since we know that one of
the roots must be real (why?). However, this is not necessarily a viable option, since it is hard for us to determine
what the roots actually are.
TRY I T YOURSELF
If the sum of the reciprocals of the roots of the quadratic Submit your answer
is , what is ?
Problem Solving Intermediate Edit
EXAMPLE
In this problem, the application of Vieta's formulas is not immediately obvious, and the expression has to be
transformed. From factorization, we have
Now we only need to know how to calculate . Again, from factorization, we have
which allows us to conclude that
EXAMPLE
and ?
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EXAMPLE
[ARML 2012, Team Problems, #6]
The zeros of are distinct complex numbers. Compute the
average value of over all possible permutations of these six numbers.
Problem Solving Advanced Edit
EXAMPLE
[IMO shortlist] Determine all real values of the parameter for which the equation
has exactly four distinct real roots that form a geometric progression.
Now, by Vieta's formula we have and .
On setting these equations become
Rearranging the equation, we get . To simplify it, we can call
and therefore , thus getting a new form
EXAMPLE
[Created by Mark Hennings] Show that
for any integer .
Solution : (By Aditya Sharma)
Let us start with DeMoivre's theorem for any positive integer n.
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We can group RHS as follows since we have
Equaing imaginary parts on LHS & RHS we get ,
[Since sin(mx)= =0]
Let
So it is a equation in 'u' and it's sum of roots is given by as we know from the vieta's.
We have
EXAMPLE
What is
[Needs solution]
[[problemshttps://brilliant.org/problems/rootsinagp2/?group=fqCLeVjFqXCV]]
Vieta Root Jumping Edit
Main Article: Vieta Root Jumping
Vieta jumping is a nickname for a particular kind of descent method that has become quite popular in higher level math
olympiad number theory problems. Like other instances of descent, it occurs when you have to solve a Diophantine
equation (or system of equations, congruences or inequalities) whose solutions have some recursive structure.
See Also Edit
Polynomial Roots
Factoring Polynomials
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Vieta Root Jumping
Cite as: Vieta's Formula. Brilliant.org. Retrieved 01:24, March 28, 2016, from https://brilliant.org/wiki/vietasformula/
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