Math Is Fun Forum

Sari

Member

Registered: 2005-12-07

Posts: 9

Basic algebra question....

I'm trying to help my brother solve a question his teacher has given him, although I think it's worded incorrectly, and have been staring at it for quite some time. Does anyone here know what the teacher might be looking for? I really don't understand what he means when he says:

List the terms of the following expression.
10p2 – 2p – 1

List the terms??    Do you think he is asking to solve the problem? I know you can simplify the problem, but you can't solve it, because p is unknown..

What do you all think?

Thanks!

kempos

Member

Registered: 2006-01-07

Posts: 77

Re: Basic algebra question....

terms of algebraic expression:
here we have three terms:
10p2
-2p
-1

Chemist

Member

Registered: 2005-12-12

Posts: 35

Re: Basic algebra question....

Maybe You mean 10p^2 - 2p - 1 = 0 or some constant ..?

Last edited by Chemist (2006-02-08 03:01:09)

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"Fundamentally one will never be able to renounce abstraction."

Werner Heisenberg

kempos

Member

Registered: 2006-01-07

Posts: 77

Re: Basic algebra question....

btw, you can solve it for p. it is a quadratic equation in terms of p

Ricky

Moderator

Registered: 2005-12-04

Posts: 3,791

Re: Basic algebra question....

It's not as hard as you think it is.  Just list the terms:

p=1, 10-2-1=7
p=2, 40-4-1=35
p=3, 90-6-1=83
etc

At least that's how I read it.

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"In the real world, this would be a problem.  But in mathematics, we can just define a place where this problem doesn't exist.  So we'll go ahead and do that now..."