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The Remainder Theorem

The Remainder Theorem states that when dividing a polynomial f(x) by x-c, the remainder is equal to f(c). To find the remainder, you calculate the value of f(c) rather than performing long division. This allows you to easily find the remainder after dividing polynomials like 2x^2 - 5x - 1 by x-3 or x-5 by simply evaluating the polynomial at c.

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150 views2 pages

The Remainder Theorem

The Remainder Theorem states that when dividing a polynomial f(x) by x-c, the remainder is equal to f(c). To find the remainder, you calculate the value of f(c) rather than performing long division. This allows you to easily find the remainder after dividing polynomials like 2x^2 - 5x - 1 by x-3 or x-5 by simply evaluating the polynomial at c.

Uploaded by

jake ballaran
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Remainder Theorem

When we divide f(x) by the simple polynomial x−c we get:

f(x) = (x−c)·q(x) + r(x)

x−c is degree 1, so r(x) must have degree 0, so it is just some constant r :

f(x) = (x−c)·q(x) + r

Now see what happens when we have x equal to c:

f(c) =(c−c)·q(c) + r
f(c) =(0)·q(c) + r
f(c) =r

So we get this:

The Remainder Theorem:

When we divide a polynomial f(x) by x−c the remainder is f(c)

So to find the remainder after dividing by x-c we don't need to do any division:

Just calculate f(c).

Let us see that in practice:

Example: The remainder after 2x2−5x−1 is divided by x−3

(Our example from above)

We don't need to divide by (x−3) ... just calculate f(3):

2(3)2−5(3)−1 = 2x9−5x3−1
= 18−15−1
=2

And that is the remainder we got from our calculations above.


We didn't need to do Long Division at all!

Example: The remainder after 2x2−5x−1 is divided by x−5

Same example as above but this time we divide by "x−5"

"c" is 5, so let us check f(5):

2(5)2−5(5)−1 = 2x25−5x5−1
= 50−25−1
= 24

The remainder is 24

Once again ... We didn't need to do Long Division to find that.

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