Thursday, October 10, 2013

Middle School Math Solutions - Factoring Calculator

Factoring is another very handy math skill where Symbolab can help you find the solution and also help you learn the solution steps.

Say you have a piece of algebra such as: x^2- 5x+6: the goal of factoring is to get this into a form that looks like (x+u)(x+v).

Why would you want to do that? to break the expression into more manageable chunks.   It turns out to be a super-important step when we come to solve quadratic equations e.g. x ^2 - 5x+6=0  (click here if you want to see how it works ).

The key to factoring quadratic  x^2 - 5x + 6  is to find u and v that factor to 6 and add up to -5.

Here's how the solution looks like (click here):



And here's one more, slightly trickier example (click here):


Feel free to play with more examples on Symbolab until you've properly got the hang of it.

Cheers,

Michal