Quadratic Equations: Examples

Solve (x

+ 1)(x 3) = 0.

This is a quadratic, and I'm supposed to solve it. I could multiply the left-hand side, simplify to find the coefficients, plug them into the Quadratic Formula, and chug away to the answer. But why would I? I mean, for heaven's sake, this is factorable, and they've already factored it and set it equal to zero for me. While the Quadratic Formula would give me the correct answer, why bother with it? Instead, I'll just solve the factors:

(x + 1)(x 3) = 0 x + 1 = 0 or x 3 = 0 x = 1 or x = 3
The solution is
rational number 1) x/2 Since the denominator is 2, which is a constant, the expression is defined for all real number values of x. 2) 2/x Since the denominator x is a variable, the expression is undefined when x = 0 3) 2/(x - 1) x-10 x1 The domain is {x| x 1}. Or you can say: The expression is undefined when x = 1. 4) 2/(x^2 + 1) Since the denominator never will equal to 0, the domain is all real number values of x.

x = 1, 3

Variation Equations
If y varies directly as x , and y =
2

8 when x = 2, find y when x = 1.

2

Since this is direct variation, the formula is "y = kx ". The reason they've given me the data point(x, y) = (2, 8) is that I have to be able to find the value of "k". So I'll plug in the information they've given me, and solve for k:

y = kx2 8 = k(22) 8 = 4k 2=k

Now that I have k, I can rewrite the formula completely: question they actually asked: "Find y when x = 1."

y = 2x2. With this, I can answer the

y = 2x2 y = 2(1)2 y = 21 y=2

Solving Radical Equations: Examples (page 2 of 6)

Solve the equation:

The two lines represented by the two sides of this equation are:

...and they graph as:

Copyright Elizabeth Stapel 2002-2011 All Rights Reserved

...so you can see that there should be a solution at or about need to square each side:

x = 10. To solve this algebraically, I

x 1 = (x 7)(x 7) x 1 = x2 14x + 49
The squared expressions can be graphed as the lines y = x 1 and y = x 14x + 49. The 2 solutions of x 1 = x 14x + 49 are the intersection points of the two lines:
2

As you can see, the intersection point at x = 10, from the first graph, is still there, but now a second, extraneous, solution has appeared at x = 5! ("Extraneous", pronounced as "ek-STRAYnee-uss", in this context means "mathematically correct, but not relevant or useful, as far as the original question is concerned".) Continuing the solution:

x 1 = x2 14x + 49

0 = x2 15x + 50 0 = (x 5)(x 10) x = 5, x = 10

So I got the result that the second graph led me to expect, but I also know, from the first graph, that "x = 5" should not be a solution. This again illustrates why you always need to check your answers when solving radical equations: the very act of squaring has, in this case, produced an extra and incorrect "solution". Here's my check:

x = 5:

x = 10:

So the answer is x

= 10.

Sequences and Series: Basic Examples

Let An =

{1, 3, 5, 7, 9}. What is the value of a3?

Find the value of The index of a3 is n = 3, so they're asking me for the third term, which is "5". The "value" they're asking for is the total, the sum, of all the terms an from a1 to a5; in other words:

a1 + a2 + a3 + a4 + a5 = 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 9 = 25
value of a3: 5 value of sum: 25

Solving Linear Equations