smc1225: (Default)
smc1225 ([personal profile] smc1225) wrote in [community profile] intro_to_cs 2010-01-05 11:30 pm (UTC)

This threw me off too. I thought it was a math term as well. But they were just giving a reminder for the quadratic equation to use to answer the problem.

Formula:
a*x^2 + b*x + c
x1 = ( - b + sqrt ( b*b - 4*a*c ) ) / ( 2*a)

Use this formula to solve the problem to find the positive root of the following equation:
34*x^2 + 68*x - 510

a=34
b=68
c=-510

solve for x
x1 = (-68 + sqrt (68*68 - 4*32*-510))/(2*32) (this will give you the value of x) which you put in place of x in the problem above.

I think I did this right - it's been a while.

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