* DIVISION OF POLYNOMIALS ** OBJECTIVES 1. Divde a polynomial by a monomial 2. Divide a polynomial by a polynomial ** CONTENT We will be using the quotient rule, where we subtract the exponents if they have the same base *** POLYNOMIAL / MONOMIAL We Add two fractions with a common denominator as follows, then seperate them a+b ----- c An example of this would be the following below: 12m^6 18m^5 30m^4 ------- + ------ + ----- = ill finish this later 6m^2 6m^2 6m^2 The first thing you need to do is divide the coefficients and subtract the exponents (mentioned in the quotient rule). 12m^6 18m^5 ------ = 2m^4, ------ = 3m^3 6m^2 6m^2 *** POLYNOMIAL / POLYNOMIAL Long divison, you treat the polynomial as if it were a normal number, but you have to follow a some rules which make this quite different: D M S BD | | | | Divide Multiply Subtract Bring Down These are the usual rules, but there are some additions: 1. Divide the dividend with the variable of the divisor 2. Multiply both polynomials to the answer you got from the first 3. Do Keep-Change-Change with the divisor after getting the product of the thing 4. Do it again. **** SYNTHETIC DIVISON Apparently technique is advanced, but is easy and can speed things up, There are the things you need to check (using this is optional, if you aren't required to do long division) 1. Check if the polynomials are complete, that make sure that the coefficients are there 2. Get the coefficients of the dividend 3. As for the variables (something like x-2), change it to the opposite side of it (so if its x-2, its going to become x + 2) Now that you just did those things, lets use this example of [x^2 - 5x + 6 / x-3] to do the rest of the steps. 1. Gather all the coefficients or the divident first x^2 - 5x + 6 | | | 1 -5 6 2. Now do the one below: x + 3 | 1 -5 6 | --------------- 3. Follow BDMA (Bring Down, Multiply, add) until you get to the point that the last term hits zero, after that, check the term with the highest exponent and subtract said exponent by 1, then copy it to the first term