<s>[INST] Finding the fraction $\frac{a^5+b^5+c^5+d^5}{a^6+b^6+c^6+d^6}$ when knowing the sums $a+b+c+d$ to $a^4+b^4+c^4+d^4$ How can I solve this question with out find a,b,c,d
$$a+b+c+d=2$$
$$a^2+b^2+c^2+d^2=30$$
$$a^3+b^3+c^3+d^3=44$$
$$a^4+b^4+c^4+d^4=354$$
so :$$\frac{a^5+b^5+c^5+d^5}{a^6+b^6+c^6+d^6}=?$$ 
If the qusetion impossible to solve withot find a,b,c,d then is there any simple way to find a,b,c,d
Is there any help?
 [/INST] One way to approach such questions is to view $a, b, c, d$ as roots of a single quartic equation $x^4-s_1x^3+s_2x^2-s_3x+s_4=0$, when we have Vieta's relations
$$s_1=a+b+c+d$$$$s_2=ab+ac+ad+bc+bd+cd=(a+b)(c+d)+ab+cd$$$$s_3=abc+abd+acd+bcd$$$$s_4=abcd$$
We then let $p_k=a^k+b^k+c^k+d^k$ with: $$p_0=4$$$$p_1-s_1=0$$$$p_2-p_1s_1+2s_2=0$$$$p_3-p_2s_1+p_1s_2-3s_3=0$$
With the given values of $p_1, p_2, p_3$ these determine $s_1, s_2, s_3$.
For higher powers $(k\ge4)$ we have $$a^k-s_1a^{k-1}+s_2a^{k-2}-s_3a^{k-3}+s_4a^{k-4}=0$$ using the quartic equation. Adding together the corresponding equations for $a , b, c, d$ we obtain the recurrence for $p_k$$$p_k-s_1p_{k-1}+s_2p_{k-2}-s_3p_{k-3}+s_4p_{k-4}=0$$
Since we know $p_4$ we can use the recurrence to find $s_4$, and this is then sufficient to compute $p_5, p_6$ from the recurrence.
If this looks complicated, this is misleading. The relations between the elementary symmetric functions $s_r$ and the sums of powers $p_r$ are useful to know, and render this kind of problem essentially mechanical. You can see that you can solve the problem without solving explicitly for $a, b, c, d$.

Following this scheme we find successively $s_1=2, s_2=-13, s_3=-14, s_4=24$. Then the recurrence gives:$$p_5-2p_4-13p_3+14p_2+24p_1=0$$ and$$p_6-2p_5-13p_4+14p_3+24p_2=0$$
And this gives $p_5=812, p_6=4890$
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