Quadratic Equations: Completing the Square Given a quadratic equation with the general formula:

We can divide both sides of the equation by a to give

a coefficient of 1, thus rewriting it as:

Now, write out the equation as follows, with B representing the coefficient of x having been divided by 2, and B representing B squared: ( Thus, you should get something like this: ( ) )

You have now successfully completed the square of a quadratic equation in the form of , and from the final answer as written above, you can obtain the turning point of a quadratic function graph (parabola) or progress onwards to derive the quadratic formula for finding roots. Quadratic Equations: The Quadratic Formula We now know that quadratic equations can be expressed by completing the square in the form shown below: ( Rearranging the equation: ( ) )

Now, we want to derive a formula to find the roots of a quadratic equation (the values of x), so we should now reduce the left hand side of the equation to get x instead of : Further simplifying the equation now gives us:

By bringing over the term

to the right hand side and then reducing the term 4

to 2a, we get:

Finally, we can write the entire right hand side as one fraction to obtain the quadratic formula: Hence, merely by substituting the values of a, b, and c from a quadratic equation into the formula above will usually give you the roots of said equation, though there do exist certain situations where you might not get any real roots from the equation.