Since there are two possible values for a and c, we might need to consider a quadratic equation. Lets work backwards a little to see what quadratic we need.
So this quadratic has roots of 1 and 9
We need to be on the lookout for something like this hopefully
now lets set up the equations
we'll let r be the common ratio between a,b,c
and for the arithmetic sequence we shall make the common difference be d
now what we have to do is to create an equation with only a and c (hopefully a quadratic), this can be done by finding two equations with just the variables a,b,c ie we need to find a way to remove r and d.
looking at equations
and
divide them to get
then we sub that new equation into
to take out the r...
Now lets look at equations
and
, subtract both of them to get
now that we have our two equations, lets sub
into
remove the b
yo it is da quad equation
, the rest should be pretty easy.