MATH 123 Chapter Notes - Chapter R: Greatest Common Divisor, Irreducible Polynomial, Distributive Property
10 Aug 2017
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Document Summary
Terms having the same variable and the same exponent are like terms. Terms that do not have both the same variable and the same exponent are unlike terms. A polynomial is a term or a finite sum of terms in which all variables have whole number exponents, and no variables appear in denominators. 3 properties of real numbers are useful for polynomial operations: commutative properties, associative properties, distributive property. Multiplication of polynomials relies on the distributive property. The reverse process, where a polynomial is written as a product of other polynomials, is called factoring. One can always check factorization by: finding the product of the factors, comparing it to the original expression. A polynomial that has no greatest common factor (other than 1) may still be factorable. A polynomial with three terms is called a trinomial. Four special factorizations occur often: difference of two squares, perfect square, difference of two cubes, sum of two cubes.
