Binomial Expansion

What is a Binomial?
An expression with two (bi) terms (nomial) like or

We are going to look at how we can expand binomials of the form

e.g.
But first…expand these
Pascal’s Triangle
- Has ones down the sides
- Middle is created by adding the two terms above it
Pascal’s Triangle
The nth row of the triangle tells us the coefficients in the expansion of

e.g. has coefficients …

Lets go back to these expansions

Use this to help you find

and
What to we do when n gets larger?
We don’t want to write out rows and rows of Pascal’s triangle so let’s
think about what happening…
Lets think about a different scenario
I need to choose 3 people from 28 for school council – how many
different combinations of students could I have?

These are all the same

ABC ACB BAC BCA CAB CBA
What is the coefficient of in
How many ways can I choose 5a’s from 20 brackets?

How many choices do I have for the first a? How many for the 2nd ? etc?

20x19x18x17x16

How do I deal with repeated the different permutations?

What is a factorial?
A factorial is the product of an integer and all the integers below. We
write it using an !

e.g. 4 factorial =
Can I generalise this?
Let’s go back to our school council problem

We ended up with the sum

How can I write all of this in terms of factorials?

Binomial Coefficients…an observation
They are symmetrical so n-r
This means if we need to work out 15 C 12 We can do 15C3 instead which is easier
This makes it easier if we need to work things out without a calculator

e.g. 14C12 = 14C2

e.g. 7C3
=
= =
=
Which is easier than
Binomial Formula
So putting everything we have done so far together

And the specific term that has is

 64 𝑥 6 +192 𝑥 5 𝑦 +240 𝑥 4 𝑦 2 +160 𝑥 3 𝑦 3

32 𝑥 5 +240 𝑥 4 𝑦 +720 𝑥3 𝑦 2+1080 𝑥 2 𝑦 3

8 7 6 2 5 3
𝑥 +16 𝑥 𝑦 +112 𝑥 𝑦 + 448 𝑥 𝑦
6 5 4 2 3 3
729 𝑥 −1458 𝑥 𝑦+1215 𝑥 𝑦 −540 𝑥 𝑦
9 8 7 2 6 3
512 𝑥 −6912 𝑥 𝑦 +41,472 𝑥 𝑦 −145,152 𝑥 𝑦
19,683 𝑥 18 +59,049 𝑥 16 𝑦 3 +314,928 𝑥14 𝑦 6 +489,888 𝑥 12 𝑦 9
 3 8
Find the coefficient of 𝑥 ∈the expansion of ( 2− 3 𝑥 )

8 10
Find the coefficient of 𝑥 ∈the expansion of ( 2− 𝑥 )

5 7
Find the coefficient of 𝑥 ∈the expansion of (5 +2 𝑥 )

( )
7
3 𝑥
Find the coefficient of 𝑥 ∈the expansion of 3+
4

4 7
Find the coefficient of 𝑥 ∈the expansion of ( 𝑥+3 )
 3 8
Find the coefficient of 𝑥 ∈the expansion of ( 2− 3 𝑥 )
− 48,384
8 10
Find the coefficient of 𝑥 ∈the expansion of ( 2− 𝑥 )
180
5 7
Find the coefficient of 𝑥 ∈the expansion of (5 +2 𝑥 )
16,800
( )
7
3 𝑥
Find the coefficient of 𝑥 ∈the expansion of 3+
4
283 5
64
4 7
Find the coefficient of 𝑥 ∈the expansion of ( 𝑥+3 )
9 45
1.25

−2

1.5

±3
Approximations

If how big are in comparison to ?

Answer: very small

This means that when p is small, the first few terms of my binomial
expansion can make god approximations for things
1.171648

3856.89

21.665

0.860368