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From: jlg@lanl-a.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Re: Simple Problem??
Message-ID: <2991@lanl-a.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Oct-83 15:39:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: lanl-a.2991
Posted: Tue Oct 18 15:39:38 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Oct-83 23:14:19 EDT
References: <221@ihlts.UUCP> <463@nsc.uucp>, <712@ihuxr.UUCP>, <230@ihlts.UUCP>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 10

A problem was recently submitted that was supposed to be so simple that a 
high school student could solve it in 10-15 minutes.  The problem was to
find the sum of the 17th powers of the roots of:

        17      2
       x   + 3 x  + 2 x - 1

Well I can see that the sum of the roots is zero.  I can also see that the
product of the roots is one.  But as for the sum of the seventeenth powers! 
I'd like to see the high schooler that can solve this problem in 10-15 minutes!