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The names for the degrees may be applied to the polynomial or to its terms. For example, the term 2x in x 2 + 2x + 1 is a linear term in a quadratic polynomial. The polynomial 0, which may be considered to have no terms at all, is called the zero polynomial. Unlike other constant polynomials, its degree is not zero.
A constant coefficient, also known as constant term or simply constant, is a quantity either implicitly attached to the zeroth power of a variable or not attached to other variables in an expression; for example, the constant coefficients of the expressions above are the number 3 and the parameter c, involved in 3=c ⋅ x 0.
In particular, the constant term will always be the lowest degree term of the polynomial. This also applies to multivariate polynomials. For example, the polynomial + + + has a constant term of −4, which can be considered to be the coefficient of , where the variables are eliminated by being exponentiated to 0 (any non-zero number ...
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.
The fundamental theorem of algebra, also called d'Alembert's theorem [1] or the d'Alembert–Gauss theorem, [2] states that every non-constant single-variable polynomial with complex coefficients has at least one complex root. This includes polynomials with real coefficients, since every real number is a complex number with its imaginary part ...
The rule states that if the nonzero terms of a single-variable polynomial with real coefficients are ordered by descending variable exponent, then the number of positive roots of the polynomial is either equal to the number of sign changes between consecutive (nonzero) coefficients, or is less than it by an even number.
In this example a, b and c are coefficients of the polynomial. Since c occurs in a term that does not involve x, it is called the constant term of the polynomial and can be thought of as the coefficient of x 0. More generally, any polynomial term or expression of degree zero (no variable) is a constant. [5]: 18
For polynomials in two or more variables, the degree of a term is the sum of the exponents of the variables in the term; the degree (sometimes called the total degree) of the polynomial is again the maximum of the degrees of all terms in the polynomial. For example, the polynomial x 2 y 2 + 3x 3 + 4y has degree 4, the same degree as the term x ...