I have reduced a knotty research problem to the following reasonable looking form: Given any two integers $a$ and $b$, show that there are natural numbers $x_1,x_2,x_3$ and a (probaby negative) integer $n$, where $-3n < x_1+x_2+x_3$, satisfying: $x_1x_2x_3=-n^3-an-b,$ and $x_1x_2+x_1x_3+x_2x_3=a+3n^2.$ I am not expecting a solution to this (although that would of course be the ideal outcome)! However, I don't really know where to start. How might one go about solving something like this? Are there any tried and tested methods I should know about? And finally, given the unsolvability of Hilbert's tenth problem, is it possible that there is no way to know whether or not this is true? (edit: equations corrected. Sorry for time-wasting!)