How do you solve $s^ { 2} - 14s + 45= 0$ ?

Question

1191 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2017-03-13T21:25:48

$s=9, s=5$

There are multiple ways of solving this. (The easiest in this case):

Find two numbers that when multiplied gives you $45$ and when added gives you $-14$

This usually a trial and error process but you'll find that these two numbers are $-9$ and $-5$

When we multiply $-9$ and $-5$ we get $45$ and when we add $-9$ and $-5$ we get $-14$

We can rewrite this information as $(s-9)(s-5)=0$

We then have to solve for the variable $s$

We treat this as two separate equations such that:

$s-9=0$ and $s-5=0$

Our final answer is therefore,

$s=9,s=5$

Note: you can check your answer by multiplying out $(s-9)(s-5)$ and you should get what you started with.

How do you solve s^ { 2} - 14s + 45= 0s^ { 2} - 14s + 45= 0?