Factoring expressions with variables
Factoring means finding the common factors of the elements in the
expression. It’s like making an expression “easier” to understand, by splitting it
up in more parts.
Here is an example:
2x+6
This expression has a variable and an integer. But can we simplify it?
First we have to find out the common factors that they have in common.
2and 6have 2 in common.
2= 2*1 6=2*3*1
so we can write this expression in its simplified form and we get
2(x+3)
because 2*x= 2x and 2*3=6
When factoring expressions we can also simplify expressions that look like
this:
x^2 +6x
The key is to again find the factors that they have in common, we do this
by splitting up in this case all the variables.
x= x*x 6x= 6*x
the common factor is x so we put x outside of the parenthesis
and inside we put an x and a 6:
x(x+6)
However we can also get things like this:
25a^2 - 49b^2
