Week 5 – factoring polynomials

This week in Math, we learned how to factor polynomials.

Ex. 8x^2-32

If we want to factor this, we must remove a common factor from each term.  In this case, a common factor is 8.

8(x^2-4)

This is factored, but it is not factored all the way because we can see that there is a difference of squares in the brackets.  To simplify this, we must multiply conjugates.

8(x+2)(x-2)

This is now the factored form of 8x^2-32

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