SOLUTION: A student writes the six complex roots of the equation z^6 + 2 = 0 on the blackboard. At every step, he randomly chooses two numbers a and b from the board, erases them, and repl

Question 1207856: A student writes the six complex roots of the equation z^6 + 2 = 0 on the blackboard.
At every step, he randomly chooses two numbers a and b from the board, erases them, and replaces them with 3ab − 3a − 3b + 4.
At the end of the fifth step, only one number is left. Find the largest possible value of this number.

Answer by ikleyn(52797) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.

I placed my solution here, but later I detected errors in it,

so I deleted everything.

Sorry for inconvenience.

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