## micahwood50 Group Title Factor 3x⁴-17x³-12x²-62 x+20 one year ago one year ago

From my calculations, it's unfactorable. Is this a multiple choice answer?

2. micahwood50 Group Title

It's not multiply choice. It is factorable, but into two quadratics. Those cannot be factor. All I'm asking is how do you factor this?

3. micahwood50 Group Title

How do you factor 3x⁴-17x³-12x²-62 x+20 into two quadratics?

4. micahwood50 Group Title

I get it. I know I have a video of this somewhere. One second.

6. mathslover Group Title

Factor theorem will surely work.

7. mathslover Group Title

find the factors of 20 first... can you tell me @micahwood50 ?

8. micahwood50 Group Title

I'm not sure how to do this, can you show me?

9. mathslover Group Title

what are the factors of 20?

10. micahwood50 Group Title

1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 20

11. mathslover Group Title

is -1 , -2 , -4,-5,-10, -20 also factors of 20 ?

12. micahwood50 Group Title

Yeah.

13. mathslover Group Title

so , now one by one put : $$\pm 1,\pm 2, \pm 4, \pm 5, \pm 10, \pm 20$$ at the place of x in the given expression

14. mathslover Group Title

In which you get the answer as 0 ?

15. mathslover Group Title

3x⁴-17x³-12x²-62 x+20 for example : $$3(-1)^4 -17(-1)^3 -12(-1)^2 -62(-1)+20$$ $$-3 +17 -12 + 62 + 20$$ $$84 \ne 0$$ Do like this for each : $$\pm 1,\pm 2, \pm 4, \pm 5, \pm 10, \pm 20$$

16. mathslover Group Title

Can you do this @micahwood50 ?

17. micahwood50 Group Title

Umm, I tried all of them, none of them works.

18. MrMoose Group Title
19. MrMoose Group Title

those are only the rational roots

20. mathslover Group Title

we want integral roots...

21. micahwood50 Group Title

You know what? Save your time and help someone else. I'm googling Factor theorem. Thanks, though.

22. MrMoose Group Title

if the lowest terms with integer coefficients are quadratics, there aren't any.

23. MrMoose Group Title

factors, not terms

24. MrMoose Group Title

that wording was bad, but I think you know what I mean

25. ByteMe Group Title

$$\large 3x^4-17x^3-12x^2-62x+20 =(3x^2+4x+10)(x^2-7x+2)$$ "Link would be helpful too. " I read a post about factoring into quadratics. Here is a post in which someone tried to explain the method of factoring into quadratics, but I could not understand it. :( http://openstudy.com/users/dpainc#/updates/4fcfdafce4b0c6963adaf2bc

26. MrMoose Group Title

I don't think that that would apply in this situation, unless you could see that x^2 -7x + 2 is a factor.