Introduction and Vocabulary
A one variable polynomial, the kind you will most often see, is an
algebraic expression made up from adding, subtracting, and multiplying
of the variable and numbers. All such things can be written as a sum of
products of numbers and powers of the variable, and when you put this
in descending order of powers it is called the standard form of the
polynomial. Here are some examples of polynomials in standard form.
x7-3x+1, x+5, 6x3-7x2+6x-9, 5, x,
2345x17, x5+x4+x3+x2+x+1,
8
The numbers that are multiplied by the powers
of the variable are called coefficients. They can be fractions as well as whole
numbers, and even irrational
numbers. You can have polynomials with complex
number coefficients as well, but most of the ones you will see in
algebra classes will have real numbers as coefficients. I only used
whole numbers, because they are easier to write down in html. Actually
not all of the numbers I used were whole numbers, some of them were
negative, because I said 'sum' in the description above, and when you
are talking about coefficients you assume that you are thinking of the
expression as a sum of things, so when you have a difference you think
of it as adding a negative, so for example the first of those
polynomials should be thought of as x7+-3x+1. We just write
such things as subtraction because that using less ink. (See How to Add, Subtract, Multiply, and Divide Integers
for more about the arithmetic of pluses and minuses.) I will only be
using integer coefficients in this article, but the only thing
different about using other coefficients is that you have to know how
to do the arithmetic for those kinds of numbers.
The expressions being added together are called terms. So for the
first example here the terms are x7, -3x, and 1. For the
second example they are x and 5. For the third example they are 6x3,
-7x2, 6x, and -9. The rest are left as exercises for the
student.
The degree of a one variable polynomial is the highest power that
occurs in it. If the polynomial is written in standard form, then this
will be the power of the first term. The first term is also sometimes
called the leading term. The degrees of my example polynomials are 7,
1, 3, 1, 17, 5, and 0. For the ones and zero here you need to remember
that anything raised to the 1 power is itself and anything raised to
the 0 power is 1. (See Integer Exponents.)
For determining degree we regard the variable alone as it raised to the
1 power. If the polynomial is just a constant, that is a number, we can
think of it as that constant multiplied by x0, since
anything times 1 is itself. Anyway, what this all means is that
polynomials that have variables, but no powers are degree 1 and
constant polynomials, ones that are just numbers are degree 0.
Polynomials can be classified both by how many terms they have
and by their degrees, particularly when these are small numbers. Here
are some names that you may see used.
Number of Terms
1 - monomial
2 - binomial
3 - trinomial
4 - quadrinomial
5 - quintinomial
You will hear and see the first three of these quite commonly. The
next two are not quite so common. There are more for higher numbers as
well, but they are not very often used.
Degrees
0 - constant
1 - linear
2 - quadratic
3 - cubic
4 - quartic
5 - quintic
The same holds with these. Up through 2, you will hear them all the
time. People seldom talk of degree 1 or 2 polynomials, they almost
always call them linear or quadratic instead. For degree 3, cubic is
pretty common too, but beyond that I just gave the names for your
entertainment.
Addition
To add polynomials we just drop the parentheses and simplify by
combining like terms. Combining like terms is just like any other
combining like terms. It comes from the distributive property.
(See
Getting Rid of Parentheses.)
Remember that like with any algebraic simplifying, everything you do
comes from a small number of properties, and in this case those are the
properties that I have listed in my articles
Getting Rid of Parentheses and
Simplifying Exponential Expressions. And
that's pretty much it. Anything that can't be justified by one of those
properties can't be done. Also remember that whenever it looks like
there is no coefficient, it is a 1, because 1 times anything is itself.
When you simplify polynomials you deal with the different powers of the
variables just like they were different variables, so for example, 3x
2+2x
has no like terms, so it cannot be simplified any further, but 3x
2+2x
2
does have like terms and can be simplified to 5x
2 by
combining like terms. Don't be tempted to think that the exponents add.
That's only for multiplying.
Example 1:
Add the polynomials.
(4x3+x2-2x+3)+(3x2+5x)
Solution:
4x3+1x2-2x+3+3x2+5x
=4x3+4x2+3x+3
Explanation:
Drop the parentheses and combine like terms. There is only one x
3
term. For the x
2 terms the first one has no coefficient, so
we give it a 1 for a coefficient because 1 times anything is itself and
combine it with the 3x
2 to make 4x
2. Then for the
x terms we have -2x and 5x, which combine to 3x. Remember to always
regard subtraction as addition of a negative. There is only one
constant term, so nothing needs to be done with it.
Subtraction
Subtraction is just a teeny bit harder than addition, but you must
really pay attention to that teeny bit, because otherwise it will get
you. Just like with other kinds of simplifying with parentheses,
see
Getting Rid of Parentheses,
when you have a minus sign in front of a set of parentheses, to get rid
of the parentheses you have to make sure and change the signs of every
term in the parentheses. You can think of this as applying the
distributive property to a multiplication by -1, since -1 times
anything is its opposite. After you have changed all of the signs of
the second polynomial everything else is just like addition.
Example 2:
Subtract the polynomials.
(3x2-5x-6)-(4x3-5x2+2x-3)
Solution:
3x2-5x-6-4x3+5x2-2x+3
=-4x3+8x2-7x-3
Explanation:
Change
all of the signs of the second polynomial and drop the
parentheses. Then we just combine like terms just like with addition.
There is nothing to go with the -4x
3. The 3x
2 and
the 5x
2 add up to the 8x
2. The -5x and the -2x
make -7x. And the -6 and the 3 add to -3.
Multiplication
Multiplication is a bit harder, because we have two operations going
on, multiplication and addition. The polynomial is a sum of things, and
we want to multiply two of these sums together, so we have to be a bit
more careful about getting rid of the parentheses, because it involves
changing the order of operation. With the parentheses the addition is
being done first, but without them the normal order of operations rule
says that the multiplication is being done first. With addition it was
all one operation, so it didn't matter. What you end up doing in the
end is multiplying all possible pairs, and in the multiplications you
have to use the rules of exponents to simplify. (See
Simplifying Exponential Expressions.)
Example 3:
Multiply the polynomials.
(3x+5)(3x-4)
Solution:
(3x)(3x)+(3x)(-4)+(5)(3x)+(5)(-4)
=9x2-12x+15x-20
=9x2+3x-20
Explanation:
We're multiplying all the possible pairs, where one factor comes from
the first polynomials and the other comes from the second
polynomials. A good way to keep track of this is to go through the
terms of the first polynomial and multiply the first one by each of the
terms in the second polynomial and then go to the second one and
multiply it by each of the terms of the second polynomial, then go to
the third one, etc., etc., until you use up all of the terms. If the
polynomials just have two terms each (binomials) like we have here,
then a good way to remember this is FOIL, which stands for firsts,
outers, inners, lasts.
To see why this multiplying all possible pairs works, you need to
apply the distributive property twice, first treating the (3x+5) like
one big strange symbol for a letter, and then splitting it up.
(3x+5)(3x-4)
=(3x+5)(3x)+(3x+5)(-4)
=(3x)(3x)+(5)(3x)+(3x)(-4)+(5)(-4),
so in the end we see that this does in fact give us all possible
pairs. We don't have to do this double distributive property thing
every time we multiply, though. We just have to multiply each pair, but
it is useful for you to see it once to see that this too just comes
from the basic properties of real numbers.
Then after we write down the products of each of the pairs, we have
to use the properties of exponents to simplify each term. (See Simplifying Exponential Expressions.) We
add the exponents and multiply the numbers.
Then after that there are often like terms to combine. Here we need
to add the -12x and the 15x to get 3x.
Example 4:
Multiply the polynomials.
(2x2+3x+5)(x2-2x-3)
Solution:
=(2x2)(x2)+(2x2)(-2x)+(2x2)(-3)+(3x)(x2)+(3x)(-2x)+(3x)(-3)+(5)(x2)+(5)(-2x)+(5)(-3)
=2x4-4x3-6x2+3x3-6x2-9x+5x2-10x-15
=2x4-x3-12x2-19x-15
Explanation:
Here again we multiply all possible pairs, but since they have more
than two terms, we can't remember it by FOIL anymore. We just go about
systematically starting with the first term in the first polynomial and
multiplying it by each of the terms in the second polynomial and then
going to the next term and doing the same until we get through all of
the terms. After that we need to simplify each term by multiplying the
numbers and adding the exponents. Then we combine the like terms to get
the final answer. You can see that particularly if you had a lot of
terms in the polynomials this could get quite long, but unfortunately
multiplication is just hard, and there really isn't any way around
that. But there is a slightly better way to keep track of things, that
we will be learning shortly.
Polynomial Arithmetic and Natural Number Arithmetic
There is an interesting thing about polynomial arithmetic, and that is
that it is really very similar to natural number arithmetic. It turns
out that you can do all polynomial arithmetic using methods very
similar to those you use for numbers, and often it makes it easy to
keep track of things. (See
How to Add, Subtract,
Multiply, and Divide Natural Numbers.) Here is how you could do the
above example using these methods.
Example 1:
Add the polynomials.
(4x3+x2-2x+3)+(3x2+5x)
Solution:
4x3+ x2-2x+3
3x2+5x
4x3+4x2+3x+3
Explanation:
Just like with several place numbers, we add vertically. We treat the
powers of the variables like place values and line up the like terms,
leaving spaces for any powers that are missing. The only difference is
that we don't have to do any carrying. This is a really good technique
for when you have to add up several polynomials like in some of the
exercises in algebra books. You can add them up just like column
addition of numbers and just add up the coefficients and let the
variables come along for the ride.
Example 2:
Subtract the polynomials.
(3x2-5x-6)-(4x3-5x2+2x-3)
Solution:
3x2-5x-6
-4x3+5x2-2x+3
-4x3+8x2-7x-3
Explanation:
The same thing as with addition except that we first change the signs
of all of the terms in the second polynomial. I suppose it would be
more like what we do with numbers if we left the signs as is and
subtracted the columns, but with plus and minus numbers to deal with I
think you will make less mistakes if you do it this way. Then just like
with addition, the like terms are all nicely lined up this way, so you
just add down the columns and bring along the variables for the ride.
Example 3:
Multiply the polynomials.
(3x+5)(3x-4)
Solution:
3x+5
3x-4
-12x-20
9x2+15x
9x2+ 3x-20
Explanation:
Multiplication is where this method is really helpful. We multiply like
we do with several place numbers. With several place numbers you also
multiply all possible pairs of the digits. With polynomials we can
treat the terms just like the digits of numbers. And remember how when
you multiply numbers, you indent when you go to the tens place. Well,
if you do it here, all the like terms will nicely line up for you to
combine, and you won't lose anything. Multiply the -4 times the 5. Then
multiply the -4 times the 3x. Then go to the x's place and multiply the
3x times the 5 and the 3x times the 3x. Then add up just like with
numbers and that will take care of the combining of like terms.
Example 4:
Multiply the polynomials.
(2x2+3x+5)(x2-2x-3)
Solution:
2x2+ 3x+ 5
x2- 2x- 3
-6x2- 9x-15
-2x3-6x2-10x
2x4+3x3+5x2
2x4+ x3-7x2-19x-15
Explanation:
In a long multiplication like this we can really see the benefit of
this method. Just like with multiplying two three place numbers, we
first multiply everything by the -3. Then we indent and multiply
everything by -2x. Then we indent again and multiply everything by the x
2,
and magically all of the like terms line up, and we can add to combine
our like terms.
Formulas
Since multiplication can be long and tedious it is helpful to have some
formulas for multiplications that come up often. Here are the most
commonly used ones.
(A+B)(A-B)=A2-B2
(A+B)2=A2+2AB+B2
(A-B)2=A2-2AB+B2
They come up often enough that it is worth memorizing them, not just
for multiplying, but for later things as well, like factoring and completing the square where it
is helpful to be able to recognize forms like these. You derive these
formulas by applying FOIL just once for each of the formulas and then
you will never have to use FOIL for any expressions of their form.
Instead you can just write down the answer by knowing the formula.
The reason the first one works is that whenever you multiply the sum
and difference of the same thing, the inners and the outers cancel out,
so you just get the firsts and the lasts. It goes like this.
A2 (firsts) -AB (outers) +BA (inners)
-B2 (lasts)
=A2-B2
Now that you know this formula, whenever you see a multiplication
that is the sum and difference of the same thing, you can do it real
quickly without going through FOIL, because we have already gone
through it in the general case.
Example 5:
Multiply the polynomials.
(x+5)(x-5)
Solution:
x2-25
Explanation:
This fits into the pattern of the formula, since it is a sum and
difference of the same things. Here A is x and B is 5. So we just write
down the difference of the squares for the answer.
Example 6:
(2x+3)(2x-3)
Solution:
4x2-9
Explanation:
Same thing here. A is 2x, and B is 3. You just have to remember that to
square a product you have to square both factors, so when you square
2x, you square both the 2 and the x.
You can also impress your friends with some mental arithmetic tricks
by using this formula, because formulas like this work for numbers as
well. Suppose you want to multiply 21x19. The quick way to do it using
this formula is to write it as
(20+1)(20-1).
Then it is a sum and difference, so you can use the formula, and it
is
202-12
Both of those computations are easy to do mentally. We compute 202
by computing 22 and adding two zeros, so that gives us 400,
and since 12 is 1, the answer is 399. You can do this to
good effect whenever you can write the numbers as the sum and
difference of the same numbers and those numbers are easy to square.
The easy way to unsure that is to use numbers that are the same amount
up and down from a multiple of 10, like 33x27, 55x45, or 62x58. For
33x27, you could see it as (30+3)(30-3), and that would mean you would
just need to square 30 and square 3 and find the difference, which
would be 900-9=891. With a little bit a practice you can get quite
quick at this. 55x45 and 62x58 are left as exercises for the student.
The second and third formulas are important because they tell us how
to multiply a binomial by itself. For this instead of canceling out,
the outers and inners are the same, so they double up.
(A+B)(A+B)
=A2 (firsts) +AB (outers) +BA (inners)
+B2 (lasts)
=A2+2AB+B2
Example 7:
Multiply the polynomials.
(x+3)2
Solution:
x2+6x+9
Explanation:
Sometimes it is helpful when dealing with formulas like these to think
about what it says in words. What this formula says in words is that to
square a sum, the first term of the answer is the square of the first
term, the second term is double the product, and the third term of the
answer is the square of the second term. The square of the first term
is x
2. The product of the two terms is 3x, and double that
is 6x. The last term squared is 3
2=9.
Example 8:
Multiply the polynomials.
(3x2+2x)2
Solution:
9x4+12x3+4x2
Explanation:
Same thing here, the terms are just a little more complicated and you
have to remember that when you square a product you square both its
factors. The product is 6x
3. When you double that you get 12x
3.
The third formula isn't really totally necessary, because
subtraction is just adding the opposite, but it makes it easier,
because then you don't have to use any negative numbers. You can see
that it is true, by applying the second formula and realizing that the
only effect that the minus sign will have is on the middle term,
because in in the last term the negative number is getting squared, so
that makes a positive number. But for the middle term you have a plus
times a minus, so that is a minus. When you are apply this formula just
make sure and not make it more difficult than it is by thinking of the
second number as negative. The formula is given to allow you to only
use positive numbers, so your A and B should be positive when you use
it.
Example 9:
Multiply the polynomials.
(4x-3)2
Solution:
16x2-24x+9
Explanation:
Again I think it is helpful to think about it in words. The only
difference between this and the last formula is that the middle term
will be minus. Here A is 4x and B is 3. The sign of the middle term of
the answer will always match that of the second term in the original.
For the first term we square the first, that's 16x
2, for the
second term it is double the product. The product is 12x, and then we
double that to get 24x, but we make it minus. The last term is the
square of the second, so it is 3
2=9.
Division
We can also divide polynomials pretty much like we divide numbers. We
do it like long division of several place numbers. It is nicer in some
ways, but nastier in others. Remember how when you do long division,
you make an estimate by using just the first places, and how it
sometimes doesn't work, and you have to raise it or lower it? Well,
with polynomials you do sort of the same thing, except it always works.
But the nastier thing is that with polynomials you have to deal with
negative number subtraction sometimes, which makes it easy to make
careless errors. To makes things simpler I'll first do an example that
doesn't involve any negative numbers.
Example 10:
Divide the polynomials.
(x5+5x4+9x3+11x2+12x+13)÷(x+2)
Solution:
Explanation:
Okay, what we have here is x
5+5x
4+9x
3+11x
2+12x+13
loaves of bread that we want to give out to x+2 people, where x is some
not yet specified number, and we want to figure out how many each
person gets. (See
How to Add, Subtract, Multiply,
and Divide Natural Numbers and
Egyptian
Division.) We do it just like number long division, treating the
terms like digits. Divide, multiply, subtract, bring down. Daddy,
mommy, sister, brother, my 4th grade teacher taught us. If we were
dividing 12 into 159123, we might get an idea of how many times 12 goes
into 15 by asking how many times 1 goes into 1, and it would be 1.
Similarly, here to get an idea of how many times x+2 goes into x
5+5x
4,
we ask how many times does x go into x
5. That means what can
we multiply x by to get x
5. That would be x
4, so
we write that down on the top. Not all textbooks recommend it, but I
think it is a good idea to put it over the x
4 term to keep
track of the fact that we are really dividing x+2 into x
5+5x
4,
just like if you were doing it with numbers you would put it over the 5
instead of the 1. That's the dividing step. Now we go to the
multiplying. We were really dividing x+2 into x
5+5x
4,
not just x into x
5, so we multiply by the whole x+2 to check
and find out how many loaves we have left after giving out x
4
of them. To multiply the x
4 times the x+2, we multiply it by
the 2 and by the x, just like multiplying it by a two digit number.
Then comes the subtraction. We subtract that from x
5+5x
4
to find out that we have 3x
4 loaves left over from
that part, but we also have the other terms, but we give out the bread
that they represent a bit at a time to make sure we have enough for
everyone, so we bring down just one more term, again just like it were
a digit of a number.
Now we want to divide x+2 into 3x4+9x3, and
again we judge that by asking how many times x goes into 3x4.
What can we multiply x by to get 3x4 ? That would be 3x3,
so we write that on top. Next comes multiply, so we multiply that by
x+2 to get 3x4+6x3. Subtract that and we get 3x3.
Bring down the 11x2. That gives us 3x3+11x2.
Divide x+2 into 3x3+11x2 by asking how many
times does x go into 3x3. That would be 3x2, so
put that on the top. Multiply by the whole x+2 to get 3x3+6x2.
Subtract that to get 5x2. Bring down the 12x to get 5x2+12x.
Divide x+2 into 5x2+12x by asking how many times does x
go into 5x2. That would be 5x times, so put that on the top.
Multiply it by the whole x+2 to get 5x2+10x. Subtract that
to get 2x. Bring down the 13 to get 2x+13.
Divide x+2 into 2x+13 by asking how many times does x go into 2x.
That would be 2 times, so put that on the top. Multiply it by the whole
x+2 to get 2x+4. Subtract that to get 9, which is the remainder.
So that means that if we had x5+5x4+9x3+11x2+12x+13
loaves of bread that we wanted to give out to x+2 people, we could give
out x4+3x3+3x2+5x+2 loaves to each
person and have 9 left over.
It is a good idea to check a division problem like this by
multiplying the answer by the divisor and adding the remainder. You
should get the dividend (the thing you divided into) if you do that.
This too is similar to what you would do with numbers. If you divided
59 by 7 and got 8 R 3, you could check this by multiplying 8 times 7 to
get 56 and then adding 3 to get 59. Let's see if that works in this
case. We can do this now with our polynomials using the vertical form
of multiplication that we just learned about.
x4+3x3+3x2+ 5x+ 2
x+ 2
2x4+6x3+6x2+10x+4
x5+3x4+3x3+ 5x2+ 2x
x5+5x4+9x3+11x2+12x+4
9
x5+5x4+9x3+11x2+12x+13
Good, it worked.
Example 11:
Divide the polynomials.
(3x5-x4-2x3+24x2-4x+3)÷(x2+2x-3)
Solution:
Explanation:
This one has some negative numbers and a 2nd degree polynomial for a
divisor, so it is a little harder. But the procedure is still the same.
For the negatives you just have to remember your integer arithmetic.
(See
How to Add, Subtract, Multiply, and Divide
Integers for a review if you need it.) The subtractions in
particular can easily lead to careless errors, so it is a good idea
when doing them to right away change all of the signs of the bottom
polynomial and then you can add instead of subtracting. But I have
often found a problem with doing that, that it kind of looks bad when
you want to go back and check your steps, because the multiplications
look wrong, so my own tendency is to avoid it if I can. Also sometimes
I am a little timid about suggesting the changing the signs and adding
thing to students too soon, because it makes it sound too complicated,
and it is too easy to forget that that it is really just the same
procedure that you do with numbers. But on the other hand, most
students don't have as much experience with plus and minus numbers as I
do, so I find that if I don't tell them to change the signs and add, a
lot of careless errors happen.
Actually no matter what I do a lot of careless errors happen with
polynomial long division. It is simply that sort of operation that is
ripe with them. I have only found one way to deal with operations like
that, and that is to SLOW DOWN. It's not a race. Nobody cares how fast
you can do it. You are not going to be asked to do this on an assembly
line. Machines can do this sort of thing a lot better than people can
anyway. You are doing this sort of thing to get some hands on
experience. We are not trying to drill you into being able to do it
without thought. You are supposed to do these things WITH thought. You
will learn a lot more if you do problems like polynomial long divisions
slowly and accurately, even if it means that you don't do as many
problems. The best kind of practice for problems like long division is
to do a small number of problems, slowly and carefully. Everybody has
their own way of working, but I find that when I have something I am
doing that I want to make sure will be accurate and there are lots of
places to make careless errors in it, it helps it I write really neat,
and sometimes even take the time to write the lettering pretty and
stylized--but that can be overdone--because it slows me down, makes me
pay attention, to some extent maybe also keeps me from getting bored,
and also makes it easier to check myself when I am done.
Anyway, getting back to the negatives and subtraction, after a bit
of thought I came up with a compromise, which is that when changing the
signs to add not to obliterate the original signs so that you can't
tell what they were, but instead write the new signs for changing the
subtractions into addition little and above the original signs. You
might even want to try writing them in another color like I have done
in the worked out division above, to make it really clear which are the
originals and which are the changed ones. Also you don't really have to
do it for every subtraction. Use your judgment. You know yourself
better than I do. If you feel confident that you can do the subtraction
without making sign errors, like particularly when everything is
positive and the top numbers are bigger than the bottom numbers, then
just do it as a subtraction. For example in this problem you might not
want to bother with the 24 and the 21, because there it is easy enough
to subtract 24-21, but I have written the changing of signs in there
anyway. And no matter what, you can always think of it as a subtraction
when you are remember the rules for the operations, so it really is
still the same steps as with numbers. You just need to remember when
you think of it this way that subtraction is adding the opposite, which
shouldn't be a problem, because if you know your rules of plus and minus arithmetic, then you know that.
So getting down to the details of the problem, again we divide,
multiply, subtract, and bring down. We see how many times x2+2x-3
goes into 3x5-x4-2x3 by asking
ourselves how many times does x2 goes into 3x5,
just like you would do if you were dividing 123 into 312443 and were
judging how many times 123 goes into 312 by asking how many times 1
goes into 3. In the number case this wouldn't quite work this time, so
you see that polynomials are in this way easier than numbers, because
the 'estimate' always works here. The reason for that, by the way, is
that numbers are more restrictive about what can be digits. The digits
of numbers can only be 0 through 9, but coefficients can be anything,
so all that matters with the polynomials is that the degree gets
reduced, and that will happen as long as the first term is right. So we
ask how many times x2 goes into 3x5, and that is
3x3, because 3x3 is the expression that you can
multiply by x2 to get 3x5, so we write this on
top and go on to the multiplying phase. Again like in the last example,
we don't just multiply it by x2 , we multiply it by the
whole divisor term by term to get 3x5+6x4-9x3.
Then we subtract that from 3x5-x4-2x3.
The safest way to subtract when you have a lot of minuses involved is
to change all of the signs of the bottom polynomial and then add. I
have indicated the new signs in blue, so we add using those signs and
get -7x4+7x3. Then we bring down the 24x2.
Now we start the process again. Divide. How many times does x2
go into -7x4. That would be -7x2 times, so we put
that on top. Multiply. Multiply -7x2 times x2+2x-3
to get -7x4-14x3+21x2. Subtract. To
subtract this we change all of its signs and add it, which gives us 21x3+3x2.
Bring down. Bring down the next term and we are ready for the next
round.
Divide. How many times does x2 go into 21x3 ?
21x times, so we put that on the top. Multiply. We multiply that times x2+2x-3
to get 21x3+42x2-63x. Subtract. To subtract,
change the signs of the bottom one and add. We get -39x2+59x.
Bring down. Bring down the 3 and we are ready to do it one last time.
Divide. How many times does x2 go into -39x2.
-39 times, so we put that on the top. Multiply. Multiply that by x2+2x-3
to get -39x2-78x+117. Subtract. To subtract we change all
the signs of the bottom one and add, which gives us 137x-114. Nothing
more to bring down, so that is our remainder.
Notice here that we have a remainder that is a linear expression, a
1st degree polynomial, instead of just a number. The rule is that the
remainder must have degree less that the degree of the divisor, so this
is okay since our divisor was degree 2.
Again we should check our answer by multiplying.
3x3-7x2+21x-39
x2+ 2x- 3
-9x3+21x2-63x+117
6x4-14x3+42x2-78x
3x5-7x4+21x3-39x2
3x5- x4- 2x3+24x2-141x+117
137x-114
3x5- x4- 2x3+24x2-
4x+ 3
and it checks.
Example 12:
Divide the polynomials
(x6+x5-x2+2)÷(x3+x+2)
Solution:
Explanation:
Here what's new is that there are some 'missing' terms, that is not all
of the powers are there. When you do any of these operations with
polynomials that have missing terms you need to either fill them in
with terms with 0 coefficients or at least leave blanks for them and
treat them as if they were terms with 0 coefficients. I have filled in
with zeros for this one, but as you get more familiar with it, you may
be able to get away with just leaving spaces. If you imagine what it
would look like without the green parts, that is what it would look
like if you did it with blanks.
Then as usual you divide, multiply, subtract, and bring down, and
again you can do your subtractions by changing all of the signs of the
bottom one and adding and I have again indicated the new signs for that
in blue. This time the remainder is degree 2, which is okay, because
the divisor was degree 3.
Again we should always check, and with the multiplication we are
also going to need spaces. For variety I will do it with spaces instead
of zeros, since multiplication is a bit easier than division.
x3+ x2- x-3
x3 + x+2
2x3+2x2-2x-6
x4+ x3- x2- 3x
x6+ x5- x4-3x3
x6+ x5
+ x2-5x-6
-2x2+5x+8
x6+ x5
+ x2 +2
Good, it worked!
A Shorter Way
In spite of these more complicated examples I have given, really the
most common use of long division is for simpler problems like the
Example 5, but possibly involving some negatives. For problems like
that there is shortcut method that you can check out if you'd like
called synthetic division. You can find out about it by reading my
article
Synthetic Division.