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The quadratic formula is exactly correct when performed using the idealized arithmetic of real numbers, but when approximate arithmetic is used instead, for example pen-and-paper arithmetic carried out to a fixed number of decimal places or the floating-point binary arithmetic available on computers, the limitations of the number representation ...
Figure 1. Plots of quadratic function y = ax 2 + bx + c, varying each coefficient separately while the other coefficients are fixed (at values a = 1, b = 0, c = 0). A quadratic equation whose coefficients are real numbers can have either zero, one, or two distinct real-valued solutions, also called roots.
The solutions of a quadratic equation are the zeros (or roots) of the corresponding quadratic function, of which there can be two, one, or zero. The solutions are described by the quadratic formula. A quadratic polynomial or quadratic function can involve more than one variable. For example, a two-variable quadratic function of variables ...
It is also used for graphing quadratic functions, deriving the quadratic formula, and more generally in computations involving quadratic polynomials, for example in calculus evaluating Gaussian integrals with a linear term in the exponent, [2] and finding Laplace transforms.
All quadratic equations have exactly two solutions in complex numbers (but they may be equal to each other), a category that includes real numbers, imaginary numbers, and sums of real and imaginary numbers. Complex numbers first arise in the teaching of quadratic equations and the quadratic formula. For example, the quadratic equation
The quadratic formula =. is a closed form of the solutions to the general quadratic equation + + =. More generally, in the context of polynomial equations, a closed form of a solution is a solution in radicals; that is, a closed-form expression for which the allowed functions are only n th-roots and field operations (+,,, /).
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 ...
Polynomial equations of degree up to four can be solved exactly using algebraic methods, of which the quadratic formula is the simplest example. Polynomial equations with a degree of five or higher require in general numerical methods (see below) or special functions such as Bring radicals , although some specific cases may be solvable ...