24. (a) Looking at the Tent Map bifurcation diagram for s > 1, we see the top of the diagram has coordinate s/2. The bottom of the diagram is the first iterate of this, hence s - s2/2. From the diagram we see this is less than 1/2. The bottom of the upper branch (before band-merging) of the diagram is the iterate of this, hence s*(s - s2/2) = s2 - s3/2. Finally, the top of the bottom branch (before band-merging) is the iterate of this, hence s - s*(s2 - s3/2) = s - s3 + s4/2. The band-merging occurs where these last two quantities are equal: s2 - s3/2 = s - s3 + s4/2. That is,

0 = (s/2)*(2 - 2*s - s2 + s3).

(b) It is easy to see s = sqrt(2) satisfies this equation:

2 - 2*sqrt(2) - (sqrt(2))2 + (sqrt(2))3 = 2 - 2*sqrt(2) - 2 + 2*sqrt(2) = 0.

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