<s>[INST] How to prove that $\sqrt[3] 2 + \sqrt[3] 4$ is irrational? So while doing all sorts of proving and disproving statements regarding irrational numbers, I ran into this one and it quite stumped me:
Prove that $\sqrt[3]{2} + \sqrt[3]{4}$ is irrational.
I tried all the usual suspects like playing with $\sqrt[3]{2} + \sqrt[3]{4} = \frac{a}{b}$ for $a,b\in \mathbb{Z}$ , but got nowhere.
I also figured maybe I should play with it this way:
$2^\frac{1}{3} + 4^\frac{1}{3}=2^\frac{1}{3} + (2^2)^\frac{1}{3}=2^\frac{1}{3} + 2^\frac{2}{3}=2^\frac{1}{3} + 2^\frac{1}{3}\times 2^\frac{1}{3}=2^\frac{1}{3}(1+2^\frac{1}{3})$
But there I got stumped again, because while $1+2^\frac{1}{3}$ is irrational, nothing promises me that $2^\frac{1}{3} \times (1+2^\frac{1}{3})$ is irrational, and I feel like trying to go further down this road is moot.
So what am I missing (other than sleep and food)? What route should I take to 
prove this?
Thanks in advance!
 [/INST] Note 
$$1 + \sqrt[3]{2} + \sqrt[3]{4} = \frac{(\sqrt[3]{2})^3 - 1}{\sqrt[3]{2} - 1} = \frac{1}{\sqrt[3]{2} - 1}.$$
So if $\sqrt[3]{2} + \sqrt[3]{4}$ is rational, then $1/(\sqrt[3]{2} - 1)$ is rational, which implies $\sqrt[3]{2} - 1$ is rational. Then $\sqrt[3]{2}$ is rational, a contradiction.
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