Home page for accesible maths Math 101 Chapter 1: Sequences and Series

Style control - access keys in brackets

Font (2 3) - + Letter spacing (4 5) - + Word spacing (6 7) - + Line spacing (8 9) - +

1.9 Factorizing by guesswork

Given f⁢(X)f(X) of degree nn, guess that aa is a zero of f⁢(X)f(X) and check f⁢(a)=0f(a)=0; then write

f⁢(X)=(x-a)⁢g⁢(X)f(X)=(x-a)g(X)

where g⁢(X)g(X) has degree n-1n-1; then guess that bb is a zero of g⁢(X)g(X) and check g⁢(b)=0g(b)=0; then

f⁢(X)=(X-a)⁢(X-b)⁢h⁢(X)f(X)=(X-a)(X-b)h(X)

where h⁢(X)h(X) has degree n-2n-2; and so on until we find all the zeros we can.

Example

Find roots of f⁢(X)=3+2⁢X+X3f(X)=3+2X+X^{3}.