Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
To complete the square, form a squared binomial on the left-hand side of a quadratic equation, from which the solution can be found by taking the square root of both sides. The standard way to derive the quadratic formula is to apply the method of completing the square to the generic quadratic equation a x 2 + b x + c = 0 {\displaystyle ...
Completing the square can be used to derive a general formula for solving quadratic equations, called the quadratic formula. [9] The mathematical proof will now be briefly summarized. [ 10 ] It can easily be seen, by polynomial expansion , that the following equation is equivalent to the quadratic equation: ( x + b 2 a ) 2 = b 2 − 4 a c 4 a 2 ...
The formula for the difference of two squares can be used for factoring polynomials that contain the square of a first quantity minus the square of a second quantity. For example, the polynomial x 4 − 1 {\displaystyle x^{4}-1} can be factored as follows:
Animation depicting the process of completing the square. (Details, animated GIF version)In elementary algebra, completing the square is a technique for converting a quadratic polynomial of the form + + to the form + for some values of and . [1]
The quadratic equation on a number can be solved using the well-known quadratic formula, which can be derived by completing the square. That formula always gives the roots of the quadratic equation, but the solutions are expressed in a form that often involves a quadratic irrational number, which is an algebraic fraction that can be evaluated ...
The square root of a univariate quadratic function gives rise to one of the four conic sections, almost always either to an ellipse or to a hyperbola. If a > 0 , {\displaystyle a>0,} then the equation y = ± a x 2 + b x + c {\displaystyle y=\pm {\sqrt {ax^{2}+bx+c}}} describes a hyperbola, as can be seen by squaring both sides.
The square of an integer may also be called a square number or a perfect square. In algebra, the operation of squaring is often generalized to polynomials, other expressions, or values in systems of mathematical values other than the numbers. For instance, the square of the linear polynomial x + 1 is the quadratic polynomial (x + 1) 2 = x 2 ...
The rule states that if the nonzero terms of a single-variable polynomial with real coefficients are ordered by descending variable exponent, then the number of positive roots of the polynomial is either equal to the number of sign changes between consecutive (nonzero) coefficients, or is less than it by an even number.