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help with polynomial solutions

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg81704] help with polynomial solutions
• From: "Jules P. Aronson" <aronson at nlm.nih.gov>
• Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 05:28:51 -0400 (EDT)
• Reply-to: aronson at nlm.nih.gov

I could not get mathematica to solve the following class of problems.

If f(x) and g(x) and two polynomials then a solution to force f(x) to be
equal to g(x) is the equate the coefficients of f(x) to be the same as
those of g(x).  For example,

a x^2 + b x + c  == x^2, has a solution, a=1, b=0, c=0.

If I do the following in mathematica:

Solve[a x^2 + b x + c == x^2, {a,b,c}] or using Reduce, I do not get the
desired solution.

Can someone tell how to force mathematica to solve such problems.

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: help with polynomial solutions
    • From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz@mimuw.edu.pl>