So I was playing around with solving polynomials last night and realized that I had no idea how to solve a polynomial with no rational roots, such as $$x^4+3x^3+6x+4=0$$
Using the rational roots test, the possible roots are $\pm1, \pm2, \pm4$, but none of these work.
Because there were no rational linear factors, I had to assume that the quartic separated into two quadratic equations yielding either imaginary or irrational "pairs" of roots. My initial attempt was to "solve for the coefficients of these factors".
I assumed that $x^4+3x^3+6x+4=0$ factored into something that looked like this
$$\left(x^2+ax+b\right)\left(x^2+cx+d\right)=0$$
because the coefficient of the first term is one. Expanding this out I got
$$x^4+ax^3+cx^3+bx^2+acx^2+dx^2+adx+bcx+bd=0$$
$$x^4+\left(a+c\right)x^3+\left(b+ac+d\right)x^2+\left(ad+bc\right)x+bd=0$$
Equating the coefficients of both equations
$$a+c = 3$$
$$b+ac+d = 0$$
$$ad+bc = 6$$
$$bd = 4$$
I found these relationships between the various coefficients. Solving this system using the two middle equations:
$$\begin{cases} b+a\left(3-a\right)+\frac4b=0 \\ a\frac4b+b\left(3-a\right)=6 \end{cases}$$
From the first equation: $$a = \frac{3\pm\sqrt{9+4b+\frac{16}{b}}}{2}$$
Substituting this into the second equation:
$$\frac{3\pm\sqrt{9+4b+\frac{16}{b}}}{2}\cdot\frac4b+b\cdot\left(3-\frac{3\pm\sqrt{9+4b+\frac{16}{b}}}{2}\right)=6$$
$$3\left(b-2\right)^2 = \left(b^2-4\right)\cdot\pm\sqrt{9+4b+\frac{16}b}$$
$$0 = \left(b-2\right)^2\cdot\left(\left(b+2\right)^2\left(9+4b+\frac{16}b\right)-9\left(b-2\right)^2\right)$$
So $b = 2$ because everything after $\left(b-2\right)^2$ did not really matter in this case. From there it was easy to get that $d = 2$, $a = -1$ and $c = 4$. This meant that
$$x^4+3x^3+6x+4=0 \to \left(x^2-x+2\right)\left(x^2+4x+2\right)=0$$
$$x = \frac12\pm\frac{\sqrt7}{2}i,\space x = -2\pm\sqrt2$$
These answers worked! I was pretty happy at the end that I had solved the equation which had taken a lot of work, but my question was if there was a better way to solve this?
Best Answer
Hint:
First check that $0$ is not a solution, hence $x\neq0\,$, so it is legal to divide by $x^2$. We get
$$ x^2+3x+\frac6x+\frac4{x^2}=0. \tag1 $$
Now note that
$$ \left(x+\frac2x\right)^2=x^2+4+\dfrac{4}{x^2}\iff x^2+\dfrac{4}{x^2}=\left(x+\dfrac2x\right)^2-4. $$
So $(1)$ can be written as :
$$ \left(x^2+\dfrac4{x^2}\right)+\left(3x+\dfrac6x\right)=0\iff \left(x+\dfrac2x\right)^2-4+3\left(x+\dfrac2x\right)=0. $$
Now use the substitution $u=x+\frac2x$ and you get the quadratic :
$$ u^2+3u-4=0. $$
Answer to a comment:
I remarked that the coefficients of the equation were symmetric in the following sense :
$$ x^4+3x^3+6x+4=0\iff (x^4+\color{#C00}2^2)+3(x^3+\color{#C00}2x)=0. $$
So I tried to divide by $x^2$, then to find a relation between $x^2+\tfrac4{x^2}$ and $\left(x+\tfrac2x\right)^2$, so that I can convert it into a quadratic.