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Graph of a polynomial function of degree 4, with its 4 roots and 3 critical points. + + + + = where a ≠ 0. The quartic is the highest order polynomial equation that can be solved by radicals in the general case (i.e., one in which the coefficients can take any value).
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 ...
Graph of a polynomial of degree 4, with 3 critical points and four real roots (crossings of the x axis) (and thus no complex roots). If one or the other of the local minima were above the x axis, or if the local maximum were below it, or if there were no local maximum and one minimum below the x axis, there would only be two real roots (and two complex roots).
The polynomial 3x 2 − 5x + 4 is written in descending powers of x. The first term has coefficient 3, indeterminate x, and exponent 2. In the second term, the coefficient is −5. The third term is a constant. Because the degree of a non-zero polynomial is the largest degree of any one term, this polynomial has degree two. [11]
Finding the roots (zeros) of a given polynomial has been a prominent mathematical problem.. Solving linear, quadratic, cubic and quartic equations in terms of radicals and elementary arithmetic operations on the coefficients can always be done, no matter whether the roots are rational or irrational, real or complex; there are formulas that yield the required solutions.
A similar but more complicated method works for cubic equations, which have three resolvents and a quadratic equation (the "resolving polynomial") relating and , which one can solve by the quadratic equation, and similarly for a quartic equation (degree 4), whose resolving polynomial is a cubic, which can in turn be solved. [14]
For the general quadratic polynomial, the discriminant is a homogeneous polynomial of degree 2 which has only two there are only two terms, while the general homogeneous polynomial of degree two in three variables has 6 terms. The discriminant of the general cubic polynomial is a homogeneous polynomial of degree 4 in four variables; it has five ...
The largest zero of this polynomial which corresponds to the second largest zero of the original polynomial is found at 3 and is circled in red. The degree 5 polynomial is now divided by () to obtain = + + which is shown in yellow. The zero for this polynomial is found at 2 again using Newton's method and is circled in yellow.