Friday, 24 January 2014

calculus - Showing a cubic equation has at most one real root or three real roots

Suppose we have x3+αx+β=0



Problem:



the cubic equation has one real root if α>0 and three real roots if 4α3+27β2<0.



Try:



Let f(x)=x3+αx+β. One has that f(x)=3x2+α. We have critical points when




3x2+α=0x2=α3



Clearly, if α>0, then we dont have critical points and f(x)>0 thus always increasing. Since limxf(x)= and limx=, then there must be some c such that f(c)=0, so we have one real root.



Now, if α<0, then we have critical points x=±α/3. but, here I am stuck. Any help would be greatly appreaciated.

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