Re: Factoring Trinomials on an 83 Re: Factoring Trinomials on an


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Bryan Herzog writes:

> Hey.  Is there any way to factor trinomials on an 83?  Is there a
program to
> do so?  If anyone knows anything, please reply.  Thanks in advance

Its certainly not hard to get the TI-83 to factor a trinomial. Calculate
the discriminant,
D, which is b*b-4*a*c for the given trinomial. If this is a perfect
square -- if int( )
applied to the square root of D and then squared gives you D back again
-- then
you have a factorable trinomial, and carrying out the rest of the
quadratic formula
gives you the roots (you will have to multiply by a to get back to
integers to construct
the factors, etc,)

The big problem in this primitive programming environment is the user
interface.
How do you want the user to _input_ the trinomial? One possibility would
be to
enter a list of coefficients {a,b,c}. But how then do you display back
the factors?
There is no way to wind up with anything more than a crude product. But,
it's fun
to try!

RWW Taylor
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester NY 14623

>>>> The plural of mongoose begins with p. <<<<

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