Quadratic equation

Revision as of 03:37, 30 October 2006 by I_like_pie (talk | contribs)

A quadratic equation is an equation of the form ${a}{x}^2+{b}{x}+{c}=0$. a, b, and c are constants, and x is the unknown variable. Quadratic equations are solved using 3 main strategies: factoring, completing the square, and the quadratic formula.


Factoring

The purpose of factoring is to turn a general quadratic into a product of binomials. This is easier to illustrate than to describe.

Example: Solve the equation $x^2-3x+2=0$ for $x$. Note: This is different for all quadratics; we cleverly chose this so that it has common factors.

Solution: $x^2-3x+2=0$

First, we expand the middle term: $x^2-x-2x+2=0$.

Next, we factor out our common terms to get $x(x-1)-2(x-1)=0$.

We can now factor the $(x-1)$ term to get $(x-1)(x-2)=0$. By a well known theorem, either $(x-1)$ or $(x-2)$ equals zero.

We now have the pair of equations $x-1=0$ and $x-2=0$. These give us the answers $x=1$ and $x=2$, which can also be written as $x=\{1,\,2\}$. Plugging these back into the original equation, we find that both of these work! We are done.


Completing the square

Completing the square

Quadratic Formula

See Quadratic Formula.

See Also