![]() Take the square root of both sides of the equation, keeping in mind that this may result in either:.Rearrange the equation so that \(ax^2\) is by itself on the left hand side of the equation, by adding or subtracting the constant \(c\) from both sides, as applicable like you would do for a linear equation.ĭivide through both sides of the equation by \(a\) (assuming \(a \neq 1\)) like you would do for a linear equation. You can solve equations like this as follows: Probably the easiest type of quadratic equation to solve is one where \(b = 0\) i.e. This page outlines three different techniques. There are various ways of solving quadratic equations, depending on the nature of the equation. The second image is an example of where the parabola intersects the \(x\) axis twice, and hence there are two solutions, and finally the third image is an example of where the parabola does not intersect the \(x\) axis at all - and hence there are no solutions. The first image below is an example of where the parabola only intersects the \(x\) axis once, and hence there is only one solution (this is actually a plot of \(y = x^2\), although no scales are included on the axes). As seen below these take the form of parabolas, and the places at which these parabolas intersect the \(x\) (horizontal) axis are the solutions to the equation (as this is when the equation is equal to \(0\)). To understand why this is the case, it can be helpful to look at the graphs of some quadratic equations. While this quadratic equation has only one solution, note that often there will be two solutions, and sometimes there will be no (real) solutions at all. So the solution to this quadratic equation is \(0\). In this case you should be able to see that the value of the variable \(x\) must be \(0\), as only \(0^2 = 0\). The most basic quadratic equation occurs when \(a = 1\), \(b = 0\) and \(c = 0\), in which case we have: These are referred to as coefficients of the equation. Where \(x\) is a variable and \(a\), \(b\) and \(c\) represent known numbers such that \(a \neq 0\) (if \(a = 0\) then the equation is linear). In particular, the page covers the following (use the drop-down menu above to jump to a different section as required):Ī quadratic equation, or second degree equation, is an algebraic equation of the form: We can use the methods for solving quadratic equations that we learned in this section to solve for the missing side.This page explains some techniques for solving quadratic equations. Because each of the terms is squared in the theorem, when we are solving for a side of a triangle, we have a quadratic equation. ![]() We use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve for the length of one side of a triangle when we have the lengths of the other two. It has immeasurable uses in architecture, engineering, the sciences, geometry, trigonometry, and algebra, and in everyday applications. It is based on a right triangle, and states the relationship among the lengths of the sides as \(a^2+b^2=c^2\), where \(a\) and \(b\) refer to the legs of a right triangle adjacent to the \(90°\) angle, and \(c\) refers to the hypotenuse. One of the most famous formulas in mathematics is the Pythagorean Theorem. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |