Rearranging Equations
- Thread starter jedlevine
- Start date
The whole point of clearing fractions was to eliminate fractions. So why divide by x? And you can very easily get all the y's on one side. You then have a quadratic in standard form.
[MATH]xy = y^2 - z \implies y^2 - xy - z = 0 \implies WHAT?[/MATH]
[MATH]xy = y^2 - z \implies y^2 - xy - z = 0 \implies WHAT?[/MATH]
Steven G
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- Dec 30, 2014
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You do NOT have multiply y terms to get on the same side. y and y^2 are NOT y terms! If they were both y terms then you can add them. You chose not to add the because they are not like terms. Again y and y^2 are NOT like terms.
So you thought they were the same. So why can't you get the y and y^2 terms on the same side of the equation??
In any case, since you have a y^2 and y term you then have a quadratic equation in terms of y so set it equal to 0 and do as JeffM suggested.
So you thought they were the same. So why can't you get the y and y^2 terms on the same side of the equation??
In any case, since you have a y^2 and y term you then have a quadratic equation in terms of y so set it equal to 0 and do as JeffM suggested.
Jomo is correct. I should not have said all the y terms because y and y^2 are not the same number (unless y = 0 or y = 1).
What I should have said is that you can rearrange the terms that have y as a factor to get a standard form. You cannot treat a quadratic equation as though it is a linear one.
What I should have said is that you can rearrange the terms that have y as a factor to get a standard form. You cannot treat a quadratic equation as though it is a linear one.
Do you know the quadratic formula?
Yes, it looks good. However, we come up with two possible values for y. That may be the best we can do, but you did not tell us where the problem came from. There may be additional information in the underlying problem that will clarify which of the two possibilities is correct.