Completing the square

Revision as of 15:22, 17 June 2006 by PenguinIntegral (talk | contribs)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Motivations

Quadratic equations are usally hard to solve, if they do not factor. Some of them, in forms $(x+a)^2=b$, are easy to solve by taking the squareroot of b and subracting a. Completing the square is a technique to munipulate every quadratic into the easily solve-able form above.

General Solution For A Monic Quadratic

Let the quadratic be in the form $x^2+xa+b=0$.

Moving be to the other side, we obtain

$x^2+xa=-b$

Then, adding a^2/4 to each side and factoring, we get

$(x+1/2a)^2=-b+a^2/4$

Which is solvable as described above.

Applications of Adding and Factoring

Other degrees of polynomials may be solved by adding constant terms and factoring.