How to square this??

Shane_O

Equation with 3 parts in it,i.e (24x^4+8x^2+16x)

I want to square the above equation,where you see ^2 that means squared or ^3 is cubed as i cant superscript it.
Is it a case of multiplying each term by every other term or what?
Thanks

Dufresne

Yes that is what it means (24x^4+8x^2+16x)^2=(24x^4+8x^2+16x)(24x^4+8x^2+16x)

You could do it like this 24x^4(24x^4+8x^2+16x)+8x^2(24x^4+8x^2+16x)+16x(24x^4+8x^2+16x)

Fremen

An easy way to see it is to set A = 24x^4 and B = 8x^2+16x
then square it the same way you normally would, then square out the B^2 term.

But yes, in general, you take each term from the first bracket, then multiply them by everything in the second bracket.

If you were guessing about how it worked, say in an exam, you could try something like

184*184 = (100 + 80 + 4)*(100 + 80 + 4)
and see if the answer came out right.

MathsManiac

Or, if you're looking for a rule to remember (analagous to the "rule" for squaring (a+b)) you can use: square of each term + twice all the cross-terms (exactly as with (a+b)^2, in fact).

That is (a+b+c)^2 = a^2+b^2+c^2 + 2ab + 2bc + 2ac.