Week 4 Quadratic Equation
The word “quadratic” comes from “quadratum”, the Latin word for square. Hence, we define a quadratic equation as an equation where the variable is of the second degree. Therefore, a quadratic equation is also called an “Equation of degree 2”.
We know that a quadratic polynomial can be written as ax^2 + bx + c. If the quadratic polynomial = 0, it forms a quadratic equation. Therefore, the standard form of a quadratic equation can be written as: ax^2 + bx + c = 0 ; where x is an unknown variable, and a, b, c are constants with ‘a’ ≠ 0 (if a = 0, then it becomes a linear equation). The constants ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’ are called the coefficients.