Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2007/paper-1/section-b/2/c/solution

The quadratic formula gives . For , write this as
Each root of a polynomial has modulus , since . As increases from to , the upper root traverses the upper unit semicircle from to , and the lower root traverses the lower semicircle in the opposite angular direction. At the roots coincide at ; at they coincide at . For intermediate they are complex conjugates.
Figure 1.
The conjugate roots travel along the two unit semicircles
. Arrows show increasing , with endpoints and and the midpoint pair . The figure is an original plot of the solution formula. Details.

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