anyone?

b plus or minus the square root of a squared minus four a c all over two a.


That's memorization from high school.
How'd I do?

Oops....I'm in the wrong thread. bai!

Next time I do a book report I will write 'y=mx+b'

For any quadratic eqn, ax^2 + bx +c = 0, x can be solved for using the quadratic formula:

x= [-b +/- sqrt(b^2-4ac)]/2a

The resultant under the square (b^2 - 4ac) is also known as the discriminate. The discriminate will tell you how many and what type of roots the equation has:

For positive discriminates there are 2 real roots, if the discriminate is 0 then there is one real root and it is x=-b/2a, if the discriminate is negative there are no real roots.

How many people are googling and wiki-ing right now??

OOP! I'm back, sorry! K,BAI!

b squared.

fuk.

You use quadratics in physics...here is the 2nd equation of motion - displacement as a function of time:

x = x0 + v0t + ½ at2

the derivative
of a quadratic function
will be linear

THE DERIVATIVE OF A CUBIC WILL BE QUADRATIC!

THE INTEGRAL OF A LINEAR FUNCTION WILL BE QUADRATIC!

Can I copy your homework?

It was a dark and stormy night. Hunter and Marie joked about all the cliches about their car breaking down in the rain and having to approach a castle such as they were, but secretly they were each a little apprehensive. After all, they *were* in a foreign country, and quite removed from the nearest city, at that. Back in the States, you could be shot for walking on somebody's land like this. Still, it was only sixteen hours until the math conference, and if Hunter didn't get there in time with his discovery about the Quadratic Equation, many people were going to die.

Quadratic equations are more interesting then cubic. When you meet a quadratic equation you're not sure what you'll get. They may be the type that likes to keep it real, or they may be complex and hard to figure out.

Just when i think i'm out!...

Laplace transforms.

I had to google that. I haven't learned about those yet, looks like I might in physics or differential equations so until then I'll have to not know what you're talking about.

It's okay - even after you learn about them you'll still not know what they are.

What is this equation commonly used to solve?

what equation?

There was one?

The B felt negative about a decision that could have a plus or minus effect. "Should I exercise and walk around the block in a square route, or should I just square myself on the toilet and crap out a #4ac?" It was divided by this indecision. Suddenly, two brothers named A walked in the door.

I'm sorry.
What sort of problem does the quadratic formula explain? I've used the damn thing myself, but I can't remember the circumstances.

You use it when you want to impress the pants off of an MIT girl. If you do, she'll instantly fall in love and wear fake bombs on her chest when she picks you up at the airport.

It's used to find the acceleration, velocity, or position of something with constant accelleration. In algebra classes this usually takees the form of finding the position of something thrown in the air or dropped off of a building.

Thank you! And MIT coeds dig it? Bonus!

Also can be used to calculate the stress at any point x along a beam under uniform loading.

(i'm totally stealing Dookie's bit and seeing if it'll fly)
wait, the bit above....all this time i've been begging my algebra teachers for practical applications. if they had said THAT, i may have fucking straightened up and paid attention (maybe...)

What do you do if they start talking about Laplace transforms? Then your sunk, even wiki won't save you then.

No, that's where you have to get all rock n' roll on them. Tell them it's not a Laplace Transform, but a LapDANCE transform, and you can demonstrate the transformation of soft to hard if they'd be so kind as to give you one.

y'know ...if the calculus people are hogging the tutor center again, i just might continue this thread with word problems...