A point in the plane with a cartesian coordinate system is called a mixed point if one of its coordinates is rational and the other one is irrational. Find all polynomials with real coefficients such that their graphs do not contain any mixed point.
Problem
Source: APMO 2001
Tags: analytic geometry, algebra, polynomial, algebra unsolved
19.03.2006 11:29
http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=78454 says even a bit more (it's not hard to get out of this that only the linear polynomials with rational coefficients work).
07.04.2006 11:26
$ax+b$, with $a,b\in \mathbb{Q}$, $a\neq 0$.
15.02.2016 05:53
This is a beautiful problem. First, I claim that all such polynomials have rational coefficients. This isn't too bad: Say that the polynomial was $f$, and $\deg f = j$. Now apply Lagrange Interpolation on any $j+1$ rational points, and we're good for this part. Now say that $\deg f \ge 2$. I claim that $f$ passes through a mixed point. First of all, multiply all the coefficients of $f$ by a suitable integer so $f$ becomes an integer polynomial. Subtract $f(0)$ from $f$, so $f(0) = 0$. Now take $-f$ if $f$ had a negative leading coefficient. For what follows, consider the domain $x > A$, where $A$ is the largest root of $f'(x)$. It is clear that $f$ is monotonic and hence bijective in this domain. Now let $a$ be the leading coefficient of $f$. Assume that $f$ passes through no mixed points. Then, it must be true that for all intergal $c$ larger than $f(A)$, there exists a unique $x > A$ such that $f(x) = c$. Moreover, by the hypothesis, this $x$ must be rational. In fact, by the rational root theorem, $x$ is a integer multiple of the fraction $\dfrac{1}{a}$! Let the sequence $k_c$ for all integers $c > A$ be this exact $x$. Since $f(x)$ is strictly increasing over this domain, so must $k_c$. Observe that \[ k_{c+1} - k_c \ge \frac{1}{a} \]since they are obviously different, and $k_{c+1} > k_c$. Also observe that \[ (c+1) - c = 1.\]By the mean value theorem, there exists a $u$ in the domain $[k_c, k_{c+1}]$ such that \[ f'(u) = \frac{f(k_{c+1}) - f(k_c)}{k_{c+1}-k_c} = \frac{1}{k_{c+1}-k_c} \le a\] However, since the degree of $f$ is larger than $1$, and $k_c$ tends to infinity, $f'$ is also monotonically increasing past a certain point. So we just need to take a sufficiently large $c$ to get contradiction in the above equation. So the only polynomials which have a chance of working are $f(x) = ax + b$, where $a, b \in \mathbb{Q}$. But it is trivial that these polynomials work, so we're done.
05.03.2023 22:14
Quite a nice problem. Let $P(x)=a_{n}x^{n}+a_{n-1}x^{n-1}+\dots +a_{1}x+a_{0}$ be a polynomial which goes through no mixed points. The key claim is the following Lemma. $P$ must only have rational coefficients. Proof: We'll only use that $P(\mathbb{N})\in\mathbb{Q}$ as otherwise $P$ would go through a mixed point. Recall that if $g\in\mathbb{R}[x]$, $\Delta_t g(n):=g(n+t)-g(n)$ and $D_k(g)=\Delta_{2^{k-1}}(D_{k-1}(f))$ where $D_0(g)=g$, then $\deg(\Delta_{k+1})+1=\deg(\Delta_{k})$ for $0\leq k\leq \deg g$ and $D_{\deg g+1}(g)$ is the zero polynomial. Hence, since $P(n)\in\mathbb{Q}$ for all $n\in\mathbb{N}$ we have that: \[\mathbb{Q}\ni D_{n}(P)=D_{n}\left(\sum\limits_{i=0}^{n} a_{i}x^{i}\right)=\sum\limits_{i=0}^{n} D_{n}\left(a_{i}x^{i}\right)=D_{n}(a_{n}x^{n})=c\cdot a_{n}\]where $c$ is some nonzero constant as $D_{n}(a_{n}x^{n})$ is a constant polynomial, but not the constant zero. Also, we know that: \[c=\frac{1}{a_{n}}D_{n}(P)=\frac{1}{a_{n}}\sum\limits_{k=1}^{2^{n}} \varepsilon_{k} P(x+k)=\sum\limits_{k=1}^{2^{n}} \varepsilon_{k} (x+k)^{n}\Longrightarrow c = \sum\limits_{k=1}^{2^{n}} \varepsilon_{k} k^{n} \in \mathbb{Z}\]where $\varepsilon_{k}\in\{+1,-1\}$ and depends on $D_{n}(P)$. Therefore $c\cdot a_{n}\in \mathbb{Q}$ and $c\in \mathbb{Z}\Longrightarrow a_{n}\in\mathbb{Q}$. Now, we must have $P_{1}(\mathbb{Q})\in \mathbb{Q}$ where $P_{1}(x)=P(x)-a_{n}x^{n}$ and applying the same procedure implies that $a_{n-1}\in\mathbb{Q}$, $a_{n-2}\in\mathbb{Q}$ and so on, we get inductively that every coefficient must be rational. If $P$ is a constant polynomial, then all inputs of $x$ spit out a rational, hence there are mixed points $P$ goes through and if $P$ is linear, then it doesn't go through any mixed points as $P(x)=a_{1}x+a_{0}$ for $a_{1}, a_{0}\in\mathbb{Q}$ and $a_{1}\neq 0$ as $P(x)\in\mathbb{Q}\iff x\in\mathbb{Q}$. We'll show that if $\deg P\geq 2$, then $P$ can't give irrational outputs for all irrational inputs. WLOG we can assume that $P$ has integer coefficients because we can multiply the polynomial by some $C\in\mathbb{N}$ such that $Ca_{i}\in\mathbb{Z}$ $\forall i$ and this wouldn't change if $P$ goes through any mixed points. WLOG let's also assume that $a_{n}>0$ (if that's not the case just negate the polynomial). Now we must have that $P(x)-n=0$ only has rational roots for all integers $n$. Let $n=p+a_{0}$ for any prime $p>\max\{a_{n}, |P(0)|+|a_{0}|\}$. Since $P(0)-p-a_{0}<0$ and $P(x)-p-a_{0}>0$ for a large enough $x$ (as the leading coefficient of $P$ is positive), $P(x)-p-a_{0}=0$ has a real solution due to IVT and this root must be rational to avoid contradiction with the assumption that $P$ doesn't go through mixed points. Now, by the Rational Root Theorem, it follows that if this root is $\frac{b}{c}$ where $b,c\in\mathbb{Z}$ and $\gcd(b,c)=1$, then $b\mid p$ and $c\mid a_{n}$ since $-p$ and $a_{n}$ are respectively the constant term and leading coefficient of $P(x)-p-a_{0}=0$. Note that the two equations $P(x)-p_{1}-a_{0}=0$ and $P(x)-p_{2}-a_{0}=0$ clearly can't share a root as that would imply that $p_{1}=p_{2}$. Now $\frac{b}{c}$ is either of the form $\frac{1}{d}$ where $d\in\mathbb{Z}$ and $d\mid a_{n}$ or $\frac{p}{d}$ where $d\in\mathbb{Z}$ and $d\mid a_{n}$. Since there are finitely many rational numbers of the first form we must have that for infinitely many primes $p$, $\frac{b}{c}=\frac{p}{d}$. Now, as there are finitely many choices for $d$, it follows that for infinitely many primes $p$ we have that $\frac{b}{c}=\frac{p}{D}$ for a fixed integer $D$, which divides $a_{n}$. Hence $P\left(\frac{p}{D}\right)-p-a_{0}=0$ for infinitely many primes $p$. This implies that the polynomial $P(X)-DX-a_{0}=0$ has infinitely many roots and is therefore the zero polynomial, but $\deg(P)\geq 2$, contradiction.