Polynomials: Sums and Products of Roots

I want to share with you something interesting about the roots of polynomials ...
What happens when you add the roots?
What happens when you multiply the roots?

Roots of a Polynomial
A "root" (or "zero") is where the polynomial is equal to zero:

Factors
We can take a polynomial, such as:

f(x) = ax4 + bx3 + ...

And then factor it like this:

f(x) = a(xp)(xq)(xr)...
Then p, q, r, etc are the roots (where the polynomial equals zero)

Quadratic
Let's try this with a Quadratic (where the variable's biggest exponent is 2):

ax2 + bx + c
When the roots are p and q, the same quadratic becomes:

a(xp)(xq)
Is there a relationship between p,q and a,b,c?
Let's expand it, by multiplying (xp) by (xq):

a(xp)(xq)
= a( x2 px qx + pq )
= ax2 a(p+q)x + apq
Now let us compare:
Quadratic:
Expanded Factors:
We can now see that a(p+q)x

ax2
ax2
= bx, so:

a(p+q) = b
p+q = b/a
And apq

= c, so:

pq = c/a
And we get this simple result:

Adding the roots gives b/a

Multiplying the roots gives c/a

This can help us answer questions.

+bx
a(p+q)x

+c
+apq

Example: What is the equation whose roots are 5 + 2 and 5 2

The sum of the roots is (5 + 2) + (5 2) = 10
The product of the roots is (5 + 2) (5 2) = 25 2 = 23
And we want an equation like:

ax2 + bx + c = 0
When a=1 we can work out that:

Sum of the roots = b/a = -b

Product of the roots = c/a = c

Which gives us this result

x2 (sum of the roots)x + (product of the roots) = 0

So we end up with:

x2 10x + 23 = 0
And here is the plot:

Cubic
Now let us look at a Cubic (one degree higher than Quadratic):

ax3 + bx2 + cx + d
As with the Quadratic, let us expand the factors:

a(xp)(xq)(xr)
= ax a(p+q+r)x2 + a(pq+pr+qr)x a(pqr)
3

And we get:

ax3
ax3

Cubic:
Expanded
Factors:

+bx2
a(p+q+r)x2
2

We can now see that a(p+q+r)x

+cx
+a(pq+pr+qr)x

= bx2, so:

a(p+q+r) = b
p+q+r = b/a
And apqr

= d, so:

pqr = d/a
This is interesting ... we get the same sort of thing:

Adding the roots gives b/a (exactly the same as the Quadratic)

Multiplying the roots gives d/a (similar to +c/a for the Quadratic)

(We also get pq+pr+qr

= c/a, which can itself be useful.)

+d
apqr

Higher Polynomials
The same pattern continues with higher polynomials.
In General:

Adding the roots gives b/a

Multiplying the roots gives (where "z" is the constant at the end):

z/a (for even degree polynomials like quadratics)

z/a (for odd degree polynomials like cubics)