Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In mathematics, a quartic equation is one which can be expressed as a quartic function equaling zero. The general form of a quartic equation is Graph of a polynomial function of degree 4, with its 4 roots and 3 critical points. + + + + = where a ≠ 0.
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).
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 ...
In calculus, Taylor's theorem gives an approximation of a -times differentiable function around a given point by a polynomial of degree , called the -th-order Taylor polynomial. For a smooth function , the Taylor polynomial is the truncation at the order k {\textstyle k} of the Taylor series of the function.
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]
Polynomials of degree one, two or three are respectively linear polynomials, quadratic polynomials and cubic polynomials. [8] For higher degrees, the specific names are not commonly used, although quartic polynomial (for degree four) and quintic polynomial (for degree five) are sometimes used. The names for the degrees may be applied to the ...
Finding the root of a linear polynomial (degree one) is easy and needs only one division: the general equation + = has solution = /. For quadratic polynomials (degree two), the quadratic formula produces a solution, but its numerical evaluation may require some care for ensuring numerical stability.
In mathematics and computer science, Horner's method (or Horner's scheme) is an algorithm for polynomial evaluation.Although named after William George Horner, this method is much older, as it has been attributed to Joseph-Louis Lagrange by Horner himself, and can be traced back many hundreds of years to Chinese and Persian mathematicians. [1]