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Printjmc
algebra intermediate
Problem
The solutions to the equation can be written in the form and , where and are integers. What is ?
Solution
First, we expand the left side of our equation to get Then we subtract from both sides to get a quadratic equation in standard form: This doesn't factor in an obvious way, so we apply the quadratic formula, which gives solutions of We can simplify this, dividing out of the numerator and denominator to obtain Thus, the integers and referred to in the problem are , , and their sum is .
Final answer
1