No label defined (Q4239299)

In the book a method for solving polynomial equations of degree \(n\) with integer coefficients is described. The basic idea of this method is to extract a quadratic equation from the given equation, to determine its coefficients and to solve it in order to obtain the solutions of the initial equation. The starting point in constructing the method is the simple fact that if \(\alpha _{1},\alpha _{2},\dots,\alpha _{n}\) are the roots (solutions) of the equation with integer coefficients \[ x^n+a_1x^{n-1}+a_2x^{n-2}+\dots+a_{n-1}x+a_n=0 \] then \[ \alpha_1^2-(\alpha_1+\alpha_2+\dots+\alpha_n)\alpha_1+\alpha_1(\alpha_2+\alpha_3+\dots+\alpha_n)=0 \] that is, \(\alpha_1\) is a solution of the quadratic equation \(x^2+a_1x+b=0,\) where \(b=\alpha_1(\alpha_2+\alpha_3+\dots+\alpha_n)\). A misprint appears in Equations (9)--(12), pp. 7 which however does not affect the obtained results -- in the reviewer's opinion (so, the right sign of the term \(a_{1}x\) in equation (12) is ``\(+\)'' and not ``\(-\)''. The proposed method seems to be computationally not very expensive, because only the four fundamental arithmetic operations are required. Its limits are due to the fact that only equations with integer coefficients are considered as in the five examples for equations of degree \(n=5,6\) and \(7\) which are finally treated.