5/26/2017 AlgebraDividingPolynomials

DividingPolynomials
Inthissectionweregoingtotakeabrieflookatdividingpolynomials.Thisissomethingthatwellbe
doingoffandonthroughouttherestofthischapterandsowellneedtobeabletodothis.

Letsdoaquickexampletoremindushowlongdivisionofpolynomialsworks.

Example1Divide by .

Solution
Letsfirstgettheproblemsetup.

Recallthatweneedtohavethetermswrittendownwiththeexponents
indecreasingorderandtomakesurewedontmakeanymistakeswe
addinanymissingtermswithazerocoefficient.

Nowweaskourselveswhatweneedtomultiply togetthefirst
terminfirstpolynomial.Inthiscasethatis .Somultiply by
andsubtracttheresultsfromthefirstpolynomial.

Thenewpolynomialiscalledtheremainder.Wecontinuetheprocess
untilthedegreeoftheremainderislessthanthedegreeofthedivisor,
whichis inthiscase.So,weneedtocontinueuntilthedegreeof
theremainderislessthan1.

Recallthatthedegreeofapolynomialisthehighestexponentinthe
polynomial.Also,recallthataconstantisthoughtofasapolynomialof
degreezero.Therefore,wellneedtocontinueuntilwegetaconstant
inthiscase.

Hereistherestoftheworkforthisexample.

http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/Alg/DividingPolynomials.aspx 1/1