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In mathematics, the method of equating the coefficients is a way of solving a functional equation of two expressions such as polynomials for a number of unknown parameters. It relies on the fact that two expressions are identical precisely when corresponding coefficients are equal for each different type of term.
The coefficient b, often denoted a 0 is called the constant term (sometimes the absolute term in old books [4] [5]). Depending on the context, the term coefficient can be reserved for the a i with i > 0. When dealing with = variables, it is common to use , and instead of indexed variables.
For example, in the polynomial + +, with variables and , the first two terms have the coefficients 7 and −3. The third term 1.5 is the constant coefficient. In the final term, the coefficient is 1 and is not explicitly written. In many scenarios, coefficients are numbers (as is the case for each term of the previous example), although they ...
The term "ordinary" is used in contrast with the term partial differential equation, which may be with respect to more than one independent variable. Linear differential equations, which have solutions that can be added and multiplied by coefficients, are well-defined and understood, and exact closed-form solutions are obtained.
A quadratic equation has at most two solutions. If there is only one solution, one says that it is a double root. If all the coefficients are real numbers, there are either two real solutions, or a single real double root, or two complex solutions that are complex conjugates of each other. A quadratic equation always has two roots, if complex ...
This definition proceeds by establishing the characteristic polynomial independently of the determinant, and defining the determinant as the lowest order term of this polynomial. This general definition recovers the determinant for the matrix algebra A = Mat n × n ( F ) {\displaystyle A=\operatorname {Mat} _{n\times n}(F)} , but also ...
However, the equality of two real numbers given by an expression is known to be undecidable (specifically, real numbers defined by expressions involving the integers, the basic arithmetic operations, the logarithm and the exponential function). In other words, there cannot exist any algorithm for deciding such an equality (see Richardson's ...
The binomial coefficients can be arranged to form Pascal's triangle, in which each entry is the sum of the two immediately above. Visualisation of binomial expansion up to the 4th power. In mathematics, the binomial coefficients are the positive integers that occur as coefficients in the binomial theorem.