Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2021/paper-1/7/solution

Let . Its values at useful points are
Since a polynomial is a continuous function, the intermediate value theorem gives one polynomial root in each of the disjoint intervals , and . A nonzero cubic polynomial has at most three distinct polynomial roots. Hence it has
These three distinct polynomial roots already exhaust its degree of a polynomial, so each has multiplicity of a root one.

New to topics? Read the docs here!