What is the inverse of f(x) = x^3 + 2x?

tomcenjerrym
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What is the inverse of this function f(x) = x^3 + 2x?

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f(x) = x^3 + 2x

y = x^3 + 2x

interchange x \Leftrightarrow y

x = y^3 + 2y

and it's a dead end to me ...
 
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That will not get you where you need to be. Rather then simply interchanging x and y, you need to chang your expression for f(x) as F(y). A simple example:

f(x)= 3x + 5

y = 3x + 5

y - 5 = 3x

y/3 - 5/3 = x

x = y/3 - 5/3

so now you have x = F(y)
 
What you need to do is solve the equation x3+ 2x= y for x. Thats solving a fairly general cubic equation. Do you have any reason to think that the inverse can be written in a simple form?
 
There are two things I don't understand about this problem. First, when finding the nth root of a number, there should in theory be n solutions. However, the formula produces n+1 roots. Here is how. The first root is simply ##\left(r\right)^{\left(\frac{1}{n}\right)}##. Then you multiply this first root by n additional expressions given by the formula, as you go through k=0,1,...n-1. So you end up with n+1 roots, which cannot be correct. Let me illustrate what I mean. For this...
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