# Solving Cubic Polynomials

2010-11-17 Tavian Barnes

Although a closed form solution exists for the roots of polynomials of degree ≤ 4, the general formulae for cubics (and quartics) is ugly. Various simplifications can be made; commonly, the cubic $a_3 x^3 + a_2 x^2 + a_1 x + a_0$ is transformed by substituting $x = t - a_2 / 3 a_3$, giving

$t^3 + p t + q = 0,$

where

\begin{aligned} p &= \frac{1}{a_3} \left( a_1 - \frac{a_2^2}{3 a_3} \right) \\ q &= \frac{1}{a_3} \left( a_0 - \frac{a_2 a_1}{3 a_3} - \frac{2 a_2^3}{27 a_3^2} \right). \end{aligned}

Several strategies exist for solving this depressed cubic, but most involve dealing with complex numbers, even when we only want to find real roots. Fortunately, there are a couple ways to find solutions with only real arithmetic. First, we need to know the value of the discriminant $\Delta = 4 p^3 + 27 q^2$.

If $\Delta < 0$, then there are three real roots; this is the tough case. Luckily, we can use the uncommon trigonometric identity $4 \cos^3(\theta) - 3 \cos(\theta) - \cos(3 \theta) = 0$ to calculate the roots with trig functions. Making another substitution, $t = 2 \sqrt{-p/3} \cos(\theta)$, gives us

$4 \cos^3(\theta) - 3 \cos(\theta) - \frac{3 q}{2 p} \sqrt{\frac{-3}{p}} = 0,$

so

$\cos(3 \theta) = \frac{3 q}{2 p} \sqrt{\frac{-3}{p}}.$

Thus the three roots are:

$t_n = 2 \sqrt{\frac{-p}{3}} \cos \left( \frac{1}{3} \cos^{-1} \left( \frac{3 q}{2 p} \sqrt{\frac{-3}{p}} \right) - \frac{2 \pi n}{3} \right),$

for $n \in \{0, 1, 2\}$. We can save a cosine calculation by noting that $t_2 = -t_0 |_{q = -q}$ and $t_1 = -(t_0 + t_2)$. When generated in this way, the roots are ordered from smallest to largest ($t_0 < t_1 < t_2$).

For the $\Delta > 0$ case, there is a single real root. We can apply the general cubic formula and avoid dealing with complex numbers, provided we choose the signs right. In this case,

$t = -\mathrm{sgn}(q) \left( C - \frac{p}{3 C} \right), \text{ where } C = \sqrt[3]{\sqrt{\frac{\Delta}{108}} + \frac{|q|}{2}}.$

When $\Delta = 0$, there is a root of at least multiplicity 2, and we can avoid calculating any radicals. If $p = 0$, the only root is $t_0 = 0$; otherwise, the duplicate root is $-3 q /2 p$ and the simple root is $3 q / p$.

My C implementation of this solution method can be seen in the dmnsn_solve_cubic() function here.