Preview

Pythagorean Quadratic Essay Example

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
766 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Pythagorean Quadratic Essay Example
Even though Ahmed’s half of the map doesn’t indicate which direction the 2x + 6 paces should go, we can assume that his and Vanessa’s paces should end up in the same place. I sketched this out on scratch paper I saw that it forms a right triangle with 2x + 6 being the length of the hypotenuse, and x and 2x + 4 being the legs of the triangle. Now I know how I can use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve for x.
The Pythagorean Theorem states that in every right triangle with legs of length a and b and hypotenuse c, these lengths have the formula of a2 + b2 = c2.
Let a = x, and b = 2x + 4, so that c = 2x + 6.
Then, by putting these measurements into the Theorem equation we have x2 + (2x + 4)2 = (2x + 6)2 The binomials into the Phythagorean Therom x2 + 4x2 + 16x + 16 = 4x2 + 24x + 36 are the binomials squared. This a 4x2 on both sides of the equation which can be (-4x2 -4x2) subtracted out first leaving the equation to be x2 + 16x + 16 = 24x + 36. Next we should Subtract 16x from both sides of equation, which then leaves us with: x2 +16 = 8x + 36. The next step would then be to subtract 36 from both sides to get a result of. x2 -20= 8x. Finally we need to subtract 8x from both sides to get x2 – 8x – 20 =0. Now we have a quadratic equation to solve by factoring and using the zero factor.
(x – ) (x + ) = 0 Since the coefficient of x2 is 1 we can start with a pair of parenthesis with an x in each. Since the 20 is negative we know there will be one + and one – in the binomials. I noticed that in order for a number to multiply to -20 and add up to -8 the numbers would then have to be -10 and 2. So when I put that into the pair I ended up with (x – 10)(x + 2) = 0 Use the zero factor property to solve each binomial. Then I set each equation up to zero which made, x– 10 = 0 or x + 2 = 0 creating a compound equation.
When I did the math and solved for each problem, I got the answer of x = 10 or x = -2. These are the possible solutions to our equation. However, one

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful