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Solving The General Cubic Equation

The document summarizes methods for solving the general cubic equation. It discusses using identities to transform the cubic into a depressed cubic of the form x^3 + mx + n = 0. It then derives formulas to solve this depressed cubic in terms of m and n. Finally, it describes the Tschirnhaus transformation method to transform a monic cubic into this depressed form by substituting x = y - p/3, allowing the cubic to then be solved using the derived formulas.

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ranshul95
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48 views

Solving The General Cubic Equation

The document summarizes methods for solving the general cubic equation. It discusses using identities to transform the cubic into a depressed cubic of the form x^3 + mx + n = 0. It then derives formulas to solve this depressed cubic in terms of m and n. Finally, it describes the Tschirnhaus transformation method to transform a monic cubic into this depressed form by substituting x = y - p/3, allowing the cubic to then be solved using the derived formulas.

Uploaded by

ranshul95
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Solving the General Cubic Equation By R.

Anshul

Consider the following identities:

(a + b )

= a 3 + b 3 + 3ab (a + b )

a w + bw 2
2

= a 3 + b 3 + 3ab (a w + b w )
= a 3 + b 3 + 3ab a w 2 + b w

(a w

+ bw

So, the roots of the equation

x 3 = a 3 + b 3 + 3abx x 3 - 3abx - a 3 - b 3 = 0

2 2 are (a + b ) , (a w + b w ) , (a w + b w) 1

For an equation of the form x 3 + mx + n = 0 2, we have :

m = -3ab

n = - a 3 + b3

So, if we solve for a and b in terms of m and n we can obtain a closed form for the solution.

m = -3ab m 3 = -27a 3b 3
Let u = a and v = b .
3 3

1 2

w is the primitive cube root of unity. This is commonly called the depressed cubic equation

Now the system of equations becomes:

m - = uv 3
3

-n = (u + v )

Let u and v be the roots of a quadratic equation in y.

y 2 - (u + v )y + uv = 0 m 3 y - ny - = 0 3
2
2 m n n y = - 3 2 4 3

Since the identities involving a and b were symmetric, u and v are symmetric. So, Without Loss Of Generality3,
2 m n n u= + - 3 2 4 3

2 m 3 n n v= - 3 2 4

value remains the same, that is, there isn t any change when two or more variables are swapped in an expression.

This means that if we assume that if we interchange the values of variables in an expression and the

Therefore,

n a=3 + 2 n b=3 2

n2

m - 3 4

n2

m - 3 4

Thus, for an equation of the form x 3 + mx + n = 0 , its solutions will be

x1 =

n + 2

n2

m + - 3 4
3

n 2

n2

m - 4 3 n2

n x2 = w 3 + 2 n + 2

n2

m n - + w2 3 3 4 2
3

m - 4 3

x3 = w

23

n2

m - +w 3 4
3

n 2

n2

m - 4 3

Now, the next target is to transform the standard monic cubic equation

x 3 + px 2 + qx + r = 0 into a cubic equation of the form x 3 + mx + n = 0


This is easily done by substituting x = y -

p4 . But, how did this suddenly come? 3

So, let us assume that x = y + t where t is any complex number. When we substitute in the monic cubic equation,

This is known as Tschirnhaus Transformation

x 3 + px 2 + qx + r = 0
3

(y + t ) + p (y + t ) + q (y + t ) + r = 0
2

y 3 + t 3 + 3y 2t + 3yt 2 + py 2 + pt 2 + 2pyt + qy + qt + r = 0 y 3 + (3t + p ) y 2 + 3t 2 + 2pt + q y + t 3 + pt 2 + qt + r = 0 3t + p = 0 t = -p 3


Needs to be 0

Hence, if we apply this transformation to a cubic equation, we can depress it into a monic cubic equation (see Footnote 2) and we can solve the depressed equation using the formulae we derived above. This method of depressing was due to Scipione del Ferro and Tartagila. Note

We can generalize the technique we used for eliminating the x 2 in a cubic equation. This uses pretty much the same strategy and we use the Binomial Expansion.

a 0 + a1x + a2x 2 + ... + an -1x n -1 + x n = 0 (y + t ) + an -1 y + t (


n

x = y +t

n -1

y n + nC 1 y n-1t + ... + t n + an -1y n + nC 1an -1y n -1t + ... + an-1t n + ... + a 0 = 0


Since we want to eliminate y n -1 , it s co-efficient should be 0. The co-efficient of y n -1 is
nt + an -1 .

+ ... + a 0 = 0

So, nt + an -1 = 0 t =

-an -1 n

Also, we can convert any cubic equation into a monic cubic equation by dividing the whole equation by the leading co-efficient (ie) in the standard cubic equation

ax 3 + bx 2 + cx + d = 0 , divide throughout by a to make it monic.

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