Thread: How can these roots be real?

I ran this equation



solving for

through http://www.quickmath.com/webMathematica3/quickmath/equations/solve/basic.jsp#v1=3v^8%2B24u^4+v^4%2B48u^8%3D3v^8%2B56u ^4+v^4%2B112u^8&v2=u

and am confused about it's results. It says that 2 of the values for are real. Here's one of them (sorry, I couldn't get the indices small with tex so am just using ordinary text

v=(-1)^(1/4) * 2^(1/4) * u

I don't understand how (-1)^(1/4) is real. I thought it was the same as

[edit]

Forgot to add, I've also done this by hand and have which I think comes to the same thing.

Originally Posted by moriman

I ran this equation



solving for

through http://www.quickmath.com/webMathematica3/quickmath/equations/solve/basic.jsp#v1=3v^8%2B24u^4+v^4%2B48u^8%3D3v^8%2B56u ^4+v^4%2B112u^8&v2=u

and am confused about it's results. It says that 2 of the values for are real. Here's one of them (sorry, I couldn't get the indices small with tex so am just using ordinary text

v=(-1)^(1/4) * 2^(1/4) * u

I don't understand how (-1)^(1/4) is real. I thought it was the same as

[edit]

Forgot to add, I've also done this by hand and have which I think comes to the same thing.

The only real solution for u is u=0, in which case v can be anything. The other solutions are all complex, as you correctly say. Moral: Don't always trust free software.

To get indices to display correctly in TeX, use braces not parentheses (curly brackets rather than round ones, in other words). So for example [TEX]v=(-1)^{1/4} * 2^{1/4} * u[/TEX] yields

Thanks for the confirmation and for the help on the indices