Intro Music:

Hey guys! Welcome back to the Pod!

If you have been tunning in each week, you will know that we have been talking about how to
solve polynomials. This week we will be continuing this conversation and talking about finding
the zeros of a polynomial if we are given one of its roots!

SO, before we begin, lets really quickly go over an important term!

What is the zero of a function? When we talk about the zero of a function, we are talking either
algebraically or graphically. If we are talking algebraically, we are looking at the values of x that
will make the function equal to zero. When we are talking graphically, we are talking about the
x-intercepts of the graph.
Note that some synonyms for zeros are solutions, roots, and x-intercepts. I will use
these words interchangeably!

So, if we were to factor out a polynomial and it had a factor of (x-2), 2 would be a zero of the
original polynomials!
Recall from last class that we would set each factor equal to zero and solve. That is how
we got 2!

So, how would we solve if we are given a polynomial and a zero? Here is how!

Let’s look at the example 1 on your notes, f(x) = 2 x3 −3 x2−39 x−20 with a zero of 4.

We would fist figure out what the factor would be based on the zero! We were given that the
zero is 4 so we know x=4. SO, we would have to subtract 4 from both sides and we would get x -
4.

Now that we know that is has a factor of (x-4), we can use that to find the other factors of the
polynomial. We will do this using polynomial long division! Later this week I will teach you guys
how to do synthetic division, but for now let’s stick with what we know!

So take a few minutes to divide f(x) by (x-4) …

After dividing, we should have gotten 2 x2 −11 x +5with no remainder/a remainder of 0. This is
crucial because it proves that (x-4) is a factor of the polynomial! So now that we have this new
polynomial, we will use one of our different factoring methods to find the rest of the factors. Do
this really quick!

Okay so you should have factored it out into (2x+1)(x+5). Now we have the other factors of the
polynomial! But we cannot stop just yet because the original question was to find the zeros.
This means we will set each factor equal to zero and solve. When you do this, you should get x =
-½ and -5.

Now we have all figured out how to find the other factors AND zeros of a polynomial given one
of its roots! I hope ya’ll had fun solving that polynomial with me!

Tune in next time for the next part of our series with solving polynomials! Next, we will be
looking at the graphs of polynomials to find their solutions!

Stay mathy!

Outro Music: