The original exercise is to
Prove that
$$4(\cos^320^\circ+\sin^310^\circ)=3(\cos20^\circ+\sin10^\circ)$$
Dividing both sides by $\cos20^\circ+\sin10^\circ$ leads me to the problem in the question title.
I've tried rewriting the left side in terms of $\sin10^\circ$:
$$4\sin^410^\circ+2\sin^310^\circ-3\sin^210^\circ-\sin10^\circ+1\quad(*)$$
but there doesn't seem to be any immediate way to simplify further. I've considered replacing $x=10^\circ$ to see if there was some observation I could make about the more general polynomial $4x^4-2x^3-3x^2-x+1$ but I don't see anything particularly useful about that. Attempting to rewrite in terms of $\cos20^\circ$ seems like it would complicate things by needlessly(?) introducing square roots.
Is there a clever application of identities to arrive at the value of $\dfrac34$? I have considered
$$\cos20^\circ\sin10^\circ=\frac{\sin30^\circ-\sin10^\circ}2=\frac14-\frac12\sin10^\circ$$
which eliminates the cubic term in $(*)$, and I would have to show that
$$4\sin^410^\circ-3\sin^210^\circ+\frac12\sin10^\circ=0$$
$$4\sin^310^\circ-3\sin10^\circ+\frac12=0$$
Best Answer
That last equation is trivial because $\sin 3\theta=3\sin \theta-4\sin^3\theta$.