Advanced ARML Lecture 7 - Advanced Polynomials

PDiao06
March 16, 2006

This lecture will attempt to expose you to the geometry of polynomials. It is sort of
like the complement or converse of coordinate/analytic geometry. Here we will actually be
using geometry to help us do our algebra, not the other way around. Unfortunately, it is
unavoidable that these techniques may become useful to geometry questions as well. The
first thing we investigate are the complex numbers. They are an extremely useful thing to
become comfortable with. However, be warned that the methods I will present to you do
not always represent the easiest way to solve problems, it’s easier for me sometimes though.

1 Complex Numbers
I will not define them carefully.
√ I will simply say that they are numbers of the form a + bi
where a, b ∈ R and i = −1. These numbers can be considered the algebraic closure of
the reals (and happens to have algebraic closure itself). What that means is that every
non-constant polynomial with complex coefficients has a complex root. This is known as the
fundamental theorem of algebra and the usual fact about how there are exactly n roots for a
nth degree polynomial follows quickly from induction. We will dive right into the geometry
of the complex numbers, because they are highly interesting in 2D for this. First of all, we
can consider it to be a vector. That is, we can plot each complex number in the complex
plane with the real part a as the x-coordinate and the imaginary part b as the y-coordinate.
Thus, each complex number is just a point in the complex plane. When we add complex
numbers it is just like vector addition, very simple. However, sometimes we want to multiply,
and we can actually do this. To understand this we have to introduce another representation
of complex numbers. It results from something called euler’s formula (which is more like a
definition of the complex exponential function). It states:
eiθ = cos θ + i sin θ
This complex exponential gives us a lot of good things. First of all, it satisfies all the usual
exponential laws, in fact there is a thereom that is extremely useful for trigonometry (as is
all complex numbers stuff in general) thanks to the sines and cosines we see. The theorem
is Demoivre’s theorem (it can do things like calculate quadruple angle formulas!):
(eiθ )n = eniθ

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However we are actually more interested in multiplication of complex numbers. First we
notice something. As θ varies, eiθ = cos θ + i sin θ varies over the entire unit circle. This
is pretty cool, in fact, extremely cool. This means that let us say that we have a number
a + bi in the complex plane. Then we can find the θ = arctan( ab ) such that we raise our
cannon up to the angle√that fires at the complex number. Then we can dilate that number
by the magnitude r = a2 + b2 and land right on it. Thus we conclude that we can write
all complex numbers in the form reiθ . This is excellent! It makes multiplication easy. It
is like polar coordinates and when we multiply, the angles just add and the magnitudes
multiply. Thus it is fairly easy to visualize the geometry of multiplication. It is in fact for
this reason that complex numbers were finally accepted in math, they had a very concrete
use and meaning in geometry! Two very important examples of geometric functions are
dilation (homothety) and rotation. Their complex function forms are: f (z) = z0 + r(z − z0 )
and f (z) = z0 + eiθ (z − z0 ).

1.1 Following the Polynomial

Now this is the most fun for me. Let us say that we are trying to solve the equation x2 +4 = 0.
This is pretty easy, but I want to just demonstrate a point. Let us first consider the geometry
of squaring something. We basically double the angle and then square the magnitude. Well,
this immediately tells us that if we want to land on something of magnitude 4 (like -4), then
our magnitude must start out being 2. Thus all solutions are going to be on the circle of
radius one, centered at the origin. Our final result is also at π radians, so we have to be half
way around. Thus our answer must have an angle of ± π2 . Quickly looking at our picture we
see that the answer must be ±2i.

1.2 Roots of Unity

These things are crucial to the max! I have no time to go into cyclotomic polynomials here,
but all of you should read up on that online. Let us consider the equation xn − 1 = 0. We
can factor out one root with the classic factorization all of you should know: (x − 1)(xn−1 +
· · · + 1) = 0. Now let us look at this equation carefully to see if we can figure out what
the other n − 1 roots must be. Let us apply some polynomial tracking. All we are doing
is taking the magnitude and taking it to the nth power and then rotating the thing by n
times the angle and hoping it lands on 1. Drawing a picture, we can pretty quickly conclude
that these are all of the evenly spaced points around the circle. This makes a connection to
2πik
regular polygons very often and trig. These things are are called the nth roots of unity e n
where k = 0, 1, · · · n − 1. These things come up all of the time, make sure you know what
they are.

1.3 More Information

Each complex number a + bi can be thought of as two real numbers. Thus when we have
an equation with complex numbers, we actually are saying something about both the real

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and imaginary part at the same time. We get two pieces of information for the price of
one! This is very useful for things like wave equations, Demoivre’s theorem, etc. You can
often just take one piece of information out of something that requires both. It is just an
extremely convenient form to manipulate things. However, unfortunately we can’t always
express any two functions as one function with just complex variables. For example the
complex conjugate of z which is defined as a − bi. Say for example we have a function that
takes z to its complex conjugate. Then I claim that this function cannot be expressed as a
function in terms of just z. Awww, it doesn’t always work. In fact it rarely ever works, the
ones who do work are called analytic. You’ll study them more in complex analysis. End of
digression.

2 Counting Roots
One of the best places to draw pictures is definitely when you are just counting roots. First
thing to remember is the Descarte’s rule of signs. I can’t think of any real geometric way to
interpret it, but its statement is that the number of positive zeros is at most the number of
changes of signs in the polynomial. This is again easily proved by induction. The nice thing
about counting roots is that you don’t actually have to calculate them, you just draw things
to see if they collide! There are a couple tips to remember:

• A polynomial of nth degree will generally have n-1 “humps” or changes in direction.

• Remember that if a polynomial is negative at one point and positive at another, con-
tinuity implies that there must be a zero in between.

• A corollary to the last statement is that a polynomial without a real root is either
always negative or always positive.

• Check the sign of the leading coefficient it determines the extreme behavior of the
polynomial far away.

• Plot as many points as you know. Zeros can be important. Often times an exponential
function might be growing quickly, but you need to know if it crosses at one point, get
that information and make your picture more accurate!

• Double roots show up as tangents.

• Absolute value bars just reflect everything under the x-axis up.

• The inverse function is just the reflection over y = x.

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3 Random Cool Finite Difference Operator
This is not geometric, but I guess this is an advanced concept that people should be somewhat
familiar with. The forward difference operator ∆ is defined as f (x+∆x)−f
∆x
(x)
. Looking at that,
it is not surprising that it is a discrete analog of the derivative. It is also important in a
lot of analysis, since you can create infinite series of choose functions and they work nicely
(thanks to pascal’s identity), but I digress. Mostly we are interested in actually letting
the ∆x = 1. Thus we can imagine starting with the values of a function evaluated at n
consecutive integers and then taking the difference operator over and over again until it is
all zero. The following results can be quickly derived:

• If our polynomial is of kth degree, then the after the k+1st time we apply the difference
operator to it, we will get all zeros.

• We can actually derive more general stuff, but for our purposes it is most useful to
memorize the special case of Newton’s forward difference formula. Say we started with
the sequence of numbers f (0), f (1), · · · , f (n), then we can construct the differences in
a triangle underneath it. Now if we call the the first number in the first row a0 , the
first number in the second row a1 , until we reach zeros, we have the following formula
for the lowest degree polynomial f (x):
   
x x
f (x) = a0 + a1 + ···
0 1

• An immediate result of this is the characterization of all polynomials which always

output an integer when you give it an integer. They are of the form
     
x x x
f (x) = a0 + a1 + · · · + an
0 1 n

where the coefficients are all integers.

This technique is very useful to interpolate polynomials and can be used to derive things
such as the sum of squares of formulae and other things. There was a very clever problem at
the Duke team round this year that required this to solve it. Round of applause to Menyoung
who solved it.

4 Practice
1. (AIME 1990 #10) Given the two sets of complex numbers, A = {z : z 18 = 1}, and
B = {z : z 48 = 1}, how many distinct elements are there in {zw : z ∈ A, w ∈ B}?

2. (AIME 1990 #12) A regular 12-gon has circumradius 12. Find the sum of the lengths
of all its sides and diagonals.

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3. (AIME 1992 #8) If A is the sequence a1 , a2 , · · ·, define ∆ A to be the sequence a2 −
a1 , a3 − a2 , · · · If ∆(∆A) has all terms 1 and a19 = a92 = 0, find a1 .
z
4. (AIME 1992 #10) A is the region of the complex plane {z : 40 and 40w
have real and
imaginary parts in (0, 1)}, where w is the complex conjugate of z (so if z = a + ib, then
w = a − ib). Find the area of A to the nearest integer.

5. (AIME 1994 #13) The equation x10 + (13x − 1)10 = 0 has 5 pairs of complex P roots
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a1 , b1 , a2 , b2 , a3 , b3 , a4 , b4 , a5 , b5 . Each pair ai , bi are complex conjugates. Find ai bi
.

6. (HMMT 2006 Algebra #8 Mildorf) Solve for all complex numbers z such that z 4 +
4z 2 + 6 = z

7. (ARML) Find all n ∈ Z+ such that x2 + x + 1|(x + 1)n − xn − 1.

8. (Chinese TST) Suppose that the coefficients of the equation xn +an−1 xn−1 +· · ·+a0 = 0
are real and satisfy 0 < a0 ≤ a1 · · · ≤ an−1 ≤ 1. Let z be a complex root of the equation
with |z| ≥ 1. Show that z n+1 = 1.

9. (MOSP 2005 Team Contest 1) Find the maximum possible finite number of roots of an
equation |x − a1 | + · · · + |x − a50 | = |x − b1 | + · · · + |x − b50 |, where a1 , · · · , a50 , b1 , · · · , b50
are distinct reals.