Quadratic formula

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Statement

Consider a quadratic equation of the form:

This is treated as an equation in . The quadratic formula is a formula to determine the solutions of this equation. The short version of the formula is that the roots are:

if the expression makes sens; otherwise there are no roots.

To understand the formula, first define the discriminant of the quadratic function as the value . Now, we make three cases:

Case for discriminant Conclusion for roots Conclusion for factorization of polynomial
positive, i.e., there are two real roots, given as and If we denote the roots by , then
zero, i.e., there is a single real root with multiplicity two, and that root is
negative, i.e., there are no real roots the polynomial does not factor, i.e., it is irreducible