Solving equations by factoring
Here are the steps for solving equations by factoring:
- Subtract the right-hand side of the equation away,
moving it to the left-hand side,
so that the right-hand side of the equation is zero.
- Simplify the left-hand side of the equation and factor it.
- Split the equation up
into several equations (with ‘or’ between them),
one equation for each factor, each factor set equal to zero.
- Solve these equations; throw out any which have no solution.
- If any solutions are repeated, count them only once.
- List all possible solutions
(as a list of statements with ‘or’ between them
or in a solution set if you prefer).
This method will work
whenever all of the solutions are rational numbers
(assuming that you can figure out how to do the factoring step),
and it may work at other times as well.
Go back to the course homepage.
This web page was written in 2011 and 2017 by Toby Bartels,
last edited on 2017 August 24.
Toby reserves no legal rights to it.
The permanent URI of this web page
is
http://tobybartels.name/MATH-0950/2017SU/solving/.
