How do you factor $4x^2-38x+18$ ?

Question

1568 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2016-05-05T17:25:24

$(4x - 2 ) ( x - 9)$ is the factorised form of the expression.

$4x^2 - 38x + 18$

We can Split the Middle Term of this expression to factorise it.

In this technique, if we have to factorise an expression like $ax^2 + bx + c$ , we need to think of 2 numbers such that:

$N_1*N_2 = a*c = 4 * 18 = 72$

AND

$N_1 +N_2 = b = -38$

After trying out a few numbers we get $N_1 = -36$ and $N_2 =-2$
$(-36) *( - 2) = 72$ , and $(-36)+(-2)= -38$

$4x^2 - 38x + 18 = 4x^2 - 36x - 2x + 18$

$= 4x ( x - 9) - 2 ( x - 9 )$
$= (4x - 2 ) ( x - 9)$

How do you factor 4x^2-38x+184x^2-38x+18?