Jae Hee Kim

Ms. Heykoop

IB Math Higher Level 11

05.26.2017

Mini IA Project: Imaginary Friends

Prompt: We’ve all had imaginary friends (some of us still do…). While real zeros of polynomials functions may be

easily seen from the graph of the polynomial, this is not the case for complex zeros. In this exploration you will investigate

“Imaginary Friends” and their generators, which help identify the real and imaginary components of complex zeros from key

points along the x-axis.

Part 1:

To find the imaginary friend of the quadratic polynomials, a basic model, y 1 = (x − a)2 + b2 , was given, where

α, β ∈ R . The coordinates for the vertex of y 1 would be ( a , b2 ).

I will refer to the “imaginary friend function” as y 1 from now on, and its “counterpart” as y 2 ; the function y m will be

used to refer to the “generating function.”

It is said that y 1 , in the case of a quadratic function, would have the same vertex as its counterpart, y 2 , but would have

the opposite concavity. Thus, if y 1 = (x − a)2 + b2 , then y 2 =− (x − a)2 + b2 . y m , which referred to the point where the two

vertices of the two reflecting functions meet, which would signify that y m = b2 , the same as the y axis of the vertex. The the

zeros (roots) of function y 2 could be seen as ( a + b , a − b ).

Below are some examples of pairs of functions of y 1 , y 2 and y m .

y1 y2 ym Graph
y 1 = (x − 2)2 + 22 y 2 =− (x − 2)2 + 22 ym = 4

y 1 = (x − 5)2 + 72 y 1 =− (x − 5)2 + 72 y m = 49
 y 1 = (x − 3.4)2 + 32 y 2 =− (x − 3.4)2 + 32 ym = 9

As seen from the graphs, y 1 is an exact duplicate of y 2 , except for the fact that the there is a negative in front of the

(x − a)2 part of the function. Thus, if y 2 were to be expressed in terms of y 1 , it would be y 2 = − y 1 + 2b2 , because

( 2 2 2
)
y 1 = (x − a)2 + b2 . If y 1 were to be plugged into the former equation, it would become y 2 =− (x − a) + b + 2b , in which the

− b2 and the 2b2 would cancel each other out to make y 2 =− (x − a)2 + b2 , the original y 2 function’s equation as mentioned

above. Moreover, if y 2 were to be expressed in terms of y m , it would be written as y 2 =− (x − y m )2 + b2 . Hence, if y 2 were to

be expressed with both y 1 and y m , it would be written as y 2 =− y 1 + 2y m .

As mentioned above, the zeros, or roots, of y 2 are ( a + b , a − b ). If one finds the zeros of y 1 using the quadratic

formula, it is revealed that the roots of y 1 are ( a ± bi ). If the two roots of y 1 were expressed as x , then the roots of y 1 could be

expressed as ( x ∓ b ± bi ).

Part 2:

To find the imaginary friend of the quadratic polynomials, a basic equation, y 1 = (x + 2)(x − (3 + 2i))(x − (3 − 2i)) , was

given. Here, it is said that “ y 1 is the imaginary friend function of another cubic function y 2 , which shares two points with y 1 ,

has the opposite concavity and its zeros are -2, 5 and 1.” The generation function, y m , in this case, passes through the points of

intersection in between the two functions.

 Two graph y 1 , I expanded the function in order to get rid of the imaginary numbers, which gave me the function

y 1 = (x2 − 6x + 13)(x + 2) .

y 2 , on the other hand, could also be written as y 2 =− (x + 2)(x − 1)(x − 5) , because its three zeros are -2. 1 and 5, and

its has an opposite concavity to y 1 , meaning that since the coefficient of x3 for the function y 1 is positive, the coefficient for

function y 2 would be negative.

The two intersections of y 1 and y 2 could be found by making the two functions equal to each other. Below are the

sample calculations:

y2 = y1

− (x + 2)(x − 1)(x − 5) = (x2 − 6x + 13)(x + 2)

− x3 + 4x2 + 7x − 10 = x3 − 4x2 + x + 26

2x3 − 8x2 − 6x + 36 = 0

x3 − 4x2 − 3x + 18 = 0

(x + 2)(x − 3)2 = 0

∴ x =− 2 or x = 3

Therefore, the two intersections of y 1 and y 2 will be (− 2, 0) and (3, 20) , and y m = 4x + 8 .

Hence, I expressed y 2 in terms of y 1 and y m in order to find the relationship between the three functions.

y 2 =− x3 + 4x2 + 7x − 10

y 2 =− x3 + 4x2 − x − 26 + 8x + 16

y 2 =− (x3 − 4x2 + x + 26) + 2(4x + 8)

∴y 2 =− y 1 + 2y m

Below is the graph of the three functions:

 I decided to investigate other similar cubic functions to the one above, and below are some examples:

y1 y2 ym Graph

y 1 = (x + 1)(x − (4 + i))(x − (4 − i)) y 2 =− (x + 1)(x − 3)(x − 5) ym = x + 1

y 1 = (x + 1)(x2 − 8x + 17) y 2 =− x3 + 7x2 − 7x − 15

y 1 = x3 − 7x2 + 9x + 17

∴ The two points of

intersection would be

(− 1, 0) and (4, 5) .
y 1 = (x − 2)(x − (1 + i))(x − (1 − i)) y 2 =− x(x − 2)2 ym = x − 2

y 1 = (x − 2)(x2 − 2x + 2) y 2 =− x3 + 4x2 − 4x

y 1 = x3 − 4x2 + 6x − 4

∴ The two points of

intersection would be

(1,− 1) and (2, 0) .

If y 1 were expressed in terms of general terms, it would be y 1 = (x − a)(x − (b + ci))(x − (b − ci)) , and y 2 would be

expressed as y 2 =− (x − a)(x − (b + c)(x − (b − c)) , and y m would be expressed as y m = x − a .

Moreover, as it was proved earlier, if y 2 in the function above would be expressed in terms of y 1 , it would be

y 2 =− y 1 + 2(y m ) . This can be proven with general terms as well:

y 2 =− (x − a)(x − (b + c)(x − (b − c))

y 2 =− (x − a)(x2 − 2bx + b2 − c2 )

y 2 =− (x − a)(x2 − 2bx + b2 + c2 ) + 2(x − a)

y 2 =− y 1 + 2y m

Thus, the roots of y 1 could be expressed as x = a or x = b + ci or x = b − ci , whilst the roots of y 2 could be

expressed as x = a or x = b + c or x = b − c . If the three roots of y 2 were expressed as x = x1 , x = x2 and x = x3 , then the

three roots of y 1 could be expressed as each x = x1 , x = x2 − c + ci and x = x3 + c − ci .