This week in math, I learned a way to factor polynomials containing perfect squares.

Using difference of squares for a binomial has certain criteria that goes every term in the binomial (including fractions) has to be a perfect square and there has to be subtraction happening in the binomial, once you know you’re using difference of squares, you find the square root of your constant and after you factor, that’s the number that goes with the (x + _) or (x – _),

Here’s an example:

Seeing that both numbers are perfect squares when expanded we see that to factor it all we have to do is find the square root of 36 and put it into the “format” (x + _)(x – _). If we were given the opposite and had to expand from (x + 6)(x – 6), seeing that there are conjugates means that there would be no x term as if you multiply the 6 and the negative 6 by x they would cancel out due to being zero terms and that constant would always be negative because there is a positive being multiplied by a negative.