Thursday, February 23, 2012

Solving Quadratic Equations ( Factorization 1 )

To "Factor" (or "Factorise" in the UK) a Quadratic is to:

find what to multiply to get the Quadratic 

It is called "Factoring" because you find the factors (a factor is something you multiply by)




Example :
The factors of x2 + 3x - 4 are:

(x+4) and (x-1)

Why?
Well, let us multiply them to see:

(x+4)(x-1)  = x(x-1) + 4(x-1)
  = x2 - x + 4x - 4
  = x2 + 3x - 4 yes

Multiplying (x+4)(x-1) together is called Expanding.
In fact, Expanding and Factoring are opposites:
Expanding is easy, but Factoring can often be tricky.

No comments:

Post a Comment