Rather

than lots of short exercises, this is a single, tougher exercise, but I hope
youll find it nice to see how a well-known formula from Nat5 onwards is
derived!

Were going to use the method of completing the square to find the roots of a
generic quadratic equation

!! ! + !" + ! = 0

by expressing it in the form

!" + ! ! + ! = 0

and then solving. See below for some progressive hints to help you along! Read
each hint and think about the problem anew before you decide whether you
need the next hint.

















[Hint 1: what formula do you remember from Nat5 for the roots of a general
quadratic equation?]


[Hint 2: in our usual completing the square approach, we focus first on the terms
!! ! + !" , choose coefficients p and q in the completed square form to give
matching terms, and then subtract off our unwanted constant term q2. This is
exactly the same, dont be discouraged by the algebra!]


[Hint 3: p2 = a, and then 2pq = b]


[Hint 4: working through as suggested above, !! ! + !" can be rewritten as
! ! !!
!! + ! !
!! ]