🍈 Zettelkasten

Synthetic Division

1 min read

A better way of division than long division.

Rules

  1. you can only use this if you are dividing by a linear function. so (ax + b).
  2. If there is a leading coefficient a, you must divide your divisor by the leading coefficient

Steps

if we have 6x^3 + 23x^2 - 6x - 8 / 3x -2

  1. Set divisor equal to zero. (ax + b) = 0 ; 3x - 2 = 0 ; x = 2/3
  2. Draw the hockey stick.
  3. Draw the coefficients for each term of the dividend
  4. Move 6 down, then multiply 6*(2/3)
  5. Add 23 with 4.
  6. Keep going.
  8. so it is 6x^2 + 27x + 4 / (3) = 2x^2 +9x + 4. REMEMBER! YOU NEED TO DIVIDE BY THE DENOMINATOR
  9. 2x^2 + 9x + 4. remainder 0

Graph View

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