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The rate of convergence depends on the absolute value of the ratio between the two roots: the farther that ratio is from unity, the more quickly the continued fraction converges. When the monic quadratic equation with real coefficients is of the form x 2 = c, the general solution described above is useless because division by zero is not well ...
His solution gives only one root, even when both roots are positive. [28] The Indian mathematician Brahmagupta included a generic method for finding one root of a quadratic equation in his treatise Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta (circa 628 AD), written out in words in the style of the time but more or less equivalent to the modern symbolic formula.
The solutions of the quadratic equation ax 2 + bx + c = 0 correspond to the roots of the function f(x) = ax 2 + bx + c, since they are the values of x for which f(x) = 0. If a, b, and c are real numbers and the domain of f is the set of real numbers, then the roots of f are exactly the x-coordinates of the points where the graph touches the x-axis.
Solving an equation numerically means that only numbers are admitted as solutions. Solving an equation symbolically means that expressions can be used for representing the solutions. For example, the equation x + y = 2x – 1 is solved for the unknown x by the expression x = y + 1, because substituting y + 1 for x in the equation results in (y ...
A square root of a number x is a number r which, when squared, becomes x: =. Every positive real number has two square roots, one positive and one negative. For example, the two square roots of 25 are 5 and −5. The positive square root is also known as the principal square root, and is denoted with a radical sign:
A solution in radicals or algebraic solution is an expression of a solution of a polynomial equation that is algebraic, that is, relies only on addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, raising to integer powers, and extraction of n th roots (square roots, cube roots, etc.). A well-known example is the quadratic formula
Continued fractions can also be applied to problems in number theory, and are especially useful in the study of Diophantine equations. In the late eighteenth century Lagrange used continued fractions to construct the general solution of Pell's equation , thus answering a question that had fascinated mathematicians for more than a thousand years ...
The nested radicals in this solution cannot in general be simplified unless the cubic equation has at least one rational solution. Indeed, if the cubic has three irrational but real solutions, we have the casus irreducibilis, in which all three real solutions are written in terms of cube roots of complex numbers. On the other hand, consider the ...