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HSC 2016 MX2 Marathon ADVANCED (archive) (2 Viewers)

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Sy123

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Re: HSC 2016 4U Marathon - Advanced Level





 

dan964

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Re: HSC 2016 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

The problem with your solution is also the second line, you seem to introduce the root that you are looking for by squaring it.
If I am misguided, then you would be better just using quadratic formula on second line, producing the two desired roots.
 
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glittergal96

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Re: HSC 2016 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

The following question is as much a test of choosing good notation in possibly unfamiliar situations as it is of your problem solving abilities.




If you cannot provide a complete proof, but think you have made progress or have a good understanding of why this theorem is true, you are welcome to post as well. The problem itself is of course not one an average MX2 student could be expected to solve.
 

Paradoxica

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Re: HSC 2016 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

So how would this apply to special cases, such as the AM-GM symmetric polynomials?
 

glittergal96

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Re: HSC 2016 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

So how would this apply to special cases, such as the AM-GM symmetric polynomials?
Not too sure what you are asking here?

I assume by AM-GM polynomials, you mean:



(The AM-GM inequality then being the statement that P_n is non-negative if each x_k is non-negative).

Indeed P_n is symmetric and so this theorem applies, that is we can express the P_n in terms of the elementary symmetric polynomials.

Eg, for n=2,3:



 

Sy123

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Re: HSC 2016 4U Marathon - Advanced Level







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glittergal96

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Re: HSC 2016 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

This seems close to the right idea, but not quite I think.

To start with, is NOT necessarily divisible by (the error in your argument being that we cannot write this difference using the set you introduced. A simple counterexample is ).

It is however true that must divide this difference, so you might be able to do something with that.

Also a quick note that the degree of a monomial in several variables normally refers to the sum of the indices, rather than the maximum of them. (This notion of degree interacts with multiplication etc in a nicer way.)


So, assuming I am correct in interpreting your overall proof strategy as:

I) Write
II) deduce q is a symmetric polynomial of lesser degree than p (your definition of degree), and is a symmetric polynomial of the same degree in fewer variables than
III) use the inductive hypotheses to write the two summands as polynomials in

My objections are:
-By my initial paragraph, q is not necessarily of lesser degree. (Nor is it necessarily symmetric in all three variables).
-p(x,y,0) is a symmetric polynomial in the two variables x and y, and so by hypothesis can be written as a polynomial in x+y and xy, but this does not mean that we can write it is a polynomial in x+y+z, xy+xz+yz, xyz. In fact such a thing is impossible unless p is constant.

Both of these objections are evident in the example

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Such an induction (which could alternatively be viewed as in nested induction to prove a statement about the cells in a countable square array by first proving the statement for the first row by using induction, and then proving it over the whole array row-by-row by using another induction) is definitely the idea behind the kind of proof I have in mind here though.
 

dan964

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Re: HSC 2016 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

Since P(x_1...x_n) is a permutation of different variables added or multiplied together
Q(S1...Sn) implies that permutation of different Sn added or multipled together.

It surfices to show that only permutations of the form Q(S1...Sn) are symmetric.
I don't honestly think I would be able to do it.
 
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dan964

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Re: HSC 2016 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

An even simpler counter-example is itself.

I came across this
that
Note that for k>n it works nicely. For k-n
You have to define
and


Here is the related result (I looked up the topic on the web). If anyone is able to derive this, apparently from here is should be able to done easily.

Doesn't apply obviously to those counter examples
which is

Not a fool-proof way, but I can now understand what Sy123 was trying to do.

note: this is not a question, just me trying to understand a previous question.
 
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Paradoxica

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Re: HSC 2016 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

omegadot said:
Nobody ever answered this in the 2015 reg marathon and I have trouble finding someone who can do it, so I'll just put it here.
 

glittergal96

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Re: HSC 2016 4U Marathon - Advanced Level

Nobody ever answered this in the 2015 reg marathon and I have trouble finding someone who can do it, so I'll just put it here.
ai) We are solving the quadratic p(z)=z^2-2wz+1=0, where w is in the open upper half unit circle.

The complex numbers u+i and v+i then must be roots of q(z)=p(z-i)=z^2-2(i+w)z+2wi.

It suffices then to prove that the roots of q lie on the same open ray from the origin.

A useful substitution here is z=2(i+w)y. If you cannot see from the form of q why this should be useful, one can observe that if the roots of q both lie on the same open ray, then their sum 2(i+w) must lie on this same ray.

Our new polynomial is r(y)=q(z)=q(2(i+w)y)=4y(y-1)(w+i)^2+2wi.

Dividing by (w+i)^2, we see that the roots of r satisfy 4y^2-4y+2wi/(w+i)^2=0.

But 2wi/(w+i)^2=((w/i+i/w)/2+1)^(-1). Since w is of unit modulus and lies in the upper half plane, we can conclude that 2wi/(w+i)^2 is a real number between 0 and 1.

The quadratic formula then implies that the roots of r are both positive real numbers. Since our change of variables from z to y just corresponded to a rotation about zero, we have proven that the roots of q lie on the same open ray from the origin, and hence that arg(u+i)=arg(v+i).

ii) We proceed similarly. Our definition of q is now:
q(z)=p(z+i)=z^2+2(i-w)z-2wi.

Our substitution is z=2(i-w)y, so

q(z)=4y(y+1)(i-w)^2-2wi.

Dividing the equation be (i-w)^2, we are left with

4y^2+4y-2wi/(w-i)^2.

Since w has unit modulus and is in the upper half plane, we have 2wi/(w-i)^2=((w/i+i/w)/2-1)^(-1) which is real and strictly less than -1.

Hence our equation in y has negative discriminant. As it's coefficients are real, we must conclude that its roots are a pair of conjugate complex numbers, and hence of equal modulus. (Again, this property is invariant under the rotational change of variables.)

b) It doesn't quite make sense to talk individually about the locii of u and v, as for each the alpha there is an arbitrary choice in which to label u. We can however talk about the locus of z satisfying the original equation.

We have |z+1/z|=2 so

|(x+iy)+(x-iy)/(x^2+y^2)|^2=4

=> |x(1+1/(x^2+y^2))+iy(1-1/(x^2+y^2))|^2=4

=> x^2(x^2+y^2+1)^2+y^2(x^2+y^2-1)^2=4(x^2+y^2)^2

=> x^4+y^4+2x^2y^2-2x^2-6y^2+1=0.

=> (x^2+(y-1)^2-2)(x^2+(y+1)^2-2)=0.

That is, the locus lies on the union of the two circles centred at i and -i respectively with radius sqrt(2).

However, note that as alpha varies, we do not hit this full union of two circles, as we have the additional constraint that z+1/z has positive imaginary part, that is y(x^2+y^2-1)>0. So we have to exclude the region outside the open unit disk and below the real axis, as well as the region inside the unit disk and above the real axis.

This leaves us with the circle centred at i with radius sqrt(2), excluding the points +-1.
 
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