Difference between revisions of "Sum and difference of powers"
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Revision as of 13:43, 14 July 2021
The sum and difference of powers are powerful factoring techniques that, respectively, factor a sum or a difference of certain powers.
Contents
Sums of Odd Powers
Differences of Powers
If is a positive integer and
and
are real numbers,
For example:
Note that the number of terms in the long factor is equal to the exponent in the expression being factored.
An amazing thing happens when and
differ by
, say,
. Then
and
.
For example:
If we also know that then:
Sum of Cubes
Factorizations of Sums of Powers
Note that all these sums of powers can be factorized as follows:
If we have a difference of powers of degree , then
where are equivalent to
respectively.
Note, of course, that some of the signs simply change when we have sum of powers instead of difference. Regardless, observe that the "longer" polynomial in the factorization is simply a binomial theorem expansion of the binomial , except for the fact that the coefficient on each of the terms is
. This can be quite useful in problems that might have a sum of powers expression as well as an application of the binomial theorem.
- icecreamrolls8
See Also
- Factoring
- Difference of squares, an extremely common specific case of this.
- Binomial Theorem