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PrintCzech-Polish-Slovak Match
algebra
Problem
Determine all integers such that the polynomial can be expressed as a product of two polynomials with positive degrees and integer coefficients.
Solution
We check that for Suppose that for we have Then, comparing the coefficients we obtain The first equation implies that and are of different parity and therefore, by the second equality, and are of the same parity. This contradicts the third equation. Hence we may assume that . Suppose that we have where and . With no loss of generality we may assume that (because ). Comparing the coefficients of both sides of (1) we obtain the following system of equations: Now we can easily prove by induction that divides . Indeed, having established this fact for we write and hence We note that all the summands on the right hand side are divisible by , therefore the left hand side also has this property. Hence . But we have ; hence and with no loss of generality we may take and then we have . Now if we repeat the above arguments for the coefficients of , then we see that divides (we set, if necessary, if ). Then we obtain a contradiction (), unless . We consider two cases. The case of . Then we arrive at a contradiction, because on the left hand side all the summands, except for the first one, are divisible by 6 and hence even, and the first summand is equal to . The case of . Then the problem reduces to finding an integer root of the polynomial ; it is easy to check that if is even there are no such roots; if is odd, . Therefore the answer to the problem is: is odd.
Final answer
All odd integers n ≥ 3
Techniques
Polynomial operationsVieta's formulasIrreducibility: Rational Root Theorem, Gauss's Lemma, EisensteinIntegersFactorization techniquesInduction / smoothing