What is a Perfect Square Trinomial?

In an algebra course, you'll spend a lot of time working with polynomials. We rank these polynomials according to
the number of terms in them. For example, a trinomial is a polynomial that has three terms.

What you'll find you spend most of your time doing with trinomials is factoring them in order to solve for the
unknowns. In this lesson, we're going to learn how to factor a special kind of trinomial called a perfect square
trinomial. Perfect square trinomials come in the following two forms:

To the left of the equals sign is the trinomial you'll be given, and to the right is what the factored form of it looks
like. The terms that make up our perfect square trinomial can be broken up into the components a and b. These
two components can consist of constants, unknowns, or a combination of the two.

How to Identify a Perfect Square Trinomial

Now you know in theory what a perfect square trinomial is, but how do you tell if the specific trinomial you're
working with is one? Remember, you won't have what's on the right side of the equals sign in the equations above.
That's what you're trying to find.
In order to see if a trinomial you're working with is a perfect square trinomial you need to check for the following
three conditions:
Condition 1: The first and third terms must be positive.
Condition 2: The first and third terms must be perfect squares.
Condition 3: If the second term is positive it's equal to 2 times the square roots of the first and third term. If the
second term is negative it's equal to -2 times the square roots of the first and third term.
You have a perfect square trinomial if and only if all three conditions are met.