Math Is Fun Forum

Thulina2

Guest

Quadratic equations

Is there a way to find out whether some quadratic equation is a complete square or not?

Bob

Administrator

Registered: 2010-06-20

Posts: 10,641

Re: Quadratic equations

hi Thulina2

Welcome to the forum.

Yes, you can tell.

If a quadratic looks like this:

then you can divide by a to get

If this factorises as a perfect (complete) square then it will look like this:

so by comparing coefficients

You may wish to simplify this by cancelling an 'a'.

example:

So

Bob

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Sometimes I deliberately make mistakes, just to test you!  …………….Bob