Solve $2^x=x^2$

Question

I've been asked to solve this and I've tried a few things but I have trouble eliminating $x$. I first tried taking the natural log: $$x\ln \left( 2\right) =2\ln \left( x\right)$$ $$\dfrac {\ln \left( 2\right) }{2}=\dfrac {\ln \left( x\right) }{x}$$ I don't know what to do from here so I decided to try another method: $$2^{x}=2^{\log _{2}\left( x^{2}\right) }$$ $$x=\log _{2}\left( x^{2}\right)$$ And then I get stuck here, I'm all out of ideas. My guess is I've overlooked something simple…

Answer 1

Your equation has two obvious solutions which are $x=2$ and $x=4$. The last solution is not rational ($x \approx -0.766665$) and cannot be obtained using simple functions. You cannot get the last root using logarithms.

Answer 2

Consider the function$$f(x):=(\ln 2)x-2\ln x$$ then $f^\prime (x)=\ln 2-2/x$. Then it easily follows that $f^\prime (x)>0$ when $x>4$ and $f^\prime (x)< 0$ when $x<2$. That is $f$ is increasing when $x>4$ and it is decreasing when $x<2$. Also $4$ and $2$ are zeros of $f$. Hence it follows that these are the only zero for $x>0$.

For, $x<0$ put $x=-y$ and consider the function $$g(y)=-(\ln 2)y-2\ln y$$ Then $g^\prime (y)=-\ln 2-2/y<0$ for all $y>0$ i.e. the function is strictly decreasing and hence it has exactly one root for $x<0$.

Answer 3

Resolution graphics:$$x^2=2^x<=>|x|=2^{\frac{x}{2}}$$

In the interval $ (-\infty,0) $ the equation has a solution because the member function is strictly decreasing and the left from the right hand is strictly increasing. In the interval $(0, \infty)$, the equation has two solutions $2$ and $4$, the function of the left hand side is linear function and the function of the right hand is convex.