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Polynomials (home)

1. General
properties
General Properties of
2. Zeroes of
Polynomials
polynomials A monomial in variable x is an expression of the form cx , where c is a k

constant and k a nonnegative integer. Constant c can be e.g. an integer,

3. Polynomials rational, real or complex number.
with integer
coefficients A polynomial in x is a sum of finitely many monomials in x. In other
words, it is an expression of the form
4. Interpolating n
P (x) = a n x + a n−1 + ⋯ + a 1 x + a 0 . (∗)
Polynomials

If only two or three of the above summands are nonzero, P is said to be

5. Applications of
a binomial and trinomial, respectively.
calculus
The constants a , … , a in (∗) are the coefficients of polynomial P . The
6. Symmetric 0 n

set of polynomials with the coefficients in set A is denoted by A[x] - for

polynomials
instance, R[x] is the set of polynomials with real coefficients.
7. Problems
We can assume in (∗) w.l.o.g. that a ≠ 0 (if a = 0, the summand
n n

a x can be erased without changing the polynomial). Then the

n
n

exponent n is called the degree of polynomial P and denoted by deg P .

In particular, polynomials of degree one, two and three are called linear,
quadratic and cubic. A nonzero constant polynomial has degree 0, while
the zero-polynomial P (x) ≡ 0 is assigned the degree −∞ for reasons
soon to become clear.

Example
3
P (x) = x (x + 1) + (1 − x )
2 2
= 2x
4
+ x
3
− 2x
2
+ 1 is a
polynomial with integer coefficients of degree 4.

Q(x) = 0x
2
− √ 2x + 3 is a linear polynomial with real
coefficients.

2
R(x) = √ x = |x| S(x) = , 1

x
and T (x) = √ 2x + 1 are not
polynomials.

Any two polynomials can be added, subtracted or multiplied, and the

result will be a polynomial too:
n m
A(x) = a 0 + a 1 x + ⋯ + a n x , B(x) = b 0 + b 1 x + ⋯ + b m x

A(x) ± B(x) = (a 0 − b 0 ) + (a 1 − b 1 )x + ⋯ ,
m+n
A(x)B(x) = a 0 b 0 + (a 0 b 1 + a 1 b 0 )x + ⋯ + a n b m x .

The behavior of the degrees of the polynomials under these operations

is clear:
 Theorem 1.1
If A and B are two polynomials then:

(a) deg(A ± B) ≤ max(deg A, deg B) , with the equality if

deg A ≠ deg B .

(b) deg(A ⋅ B) = deg A + deg B .

The conventional equality deg 0 = −∞ actually arose from these

properties of degrees, as else the equality (b) would not be always true.

Unlike a sum, difference and product, a quotient of two polynomials is

not necessarily a polynomial. Instead, like integers, they can be divided
with a residue.

Theorem 1.2
Given polynomials A and B ≠ 0 , there are unique polynomials Q
(quotient) and R (residue) such that

A = BQ + R and deg R < deg B.

Show proof

Example The quotient upon division of A(x) = x

3
+ x
2
− 1 by
B(x) = x
2
− x − 3 is x + 2 with the residue 5x + 5, as
3 2
x + x − 1 5x + 5
= x + 2 + .
2 2
x − x − 3 x − x − 3

We say that polynomial A is divisible by polynomial B if the remainder R

when A is divided by B equal to 0, i.e. if there is a polynomial Q such
that A = BQ.

Theorem 1.3 (Bezout’s theorem)

Polynomial P (x) is divisible by binomial x − a if and only if
P (a) = 0.

Show proof

Number a is a zero (or root) of a given polynomial P (x) if P (a) = 0 , i.e.

(x − a) ∣ P (x).

To determine a zero of a polynomial f means to solve the equation

f (x) = 0. This is not always possible. For example, it is known that

finding the exact values of zeros is impossible in general when f is of

degree at least 5. Nevertheless, the zeros can always be computed with
an arbitrary precision. Specifically, f (a) < 0 < f (b) implies that f has a
zero between a and b.

Example
Polynomial x 2
− 2x − 1 has two real roots: x 1,2 = 1 ± √2 .

Polynomial x 2
− 2x + 2 has no real roots, but it has two complex
roots: x 1,2 = 1 ± i .

Polynomial x 5
− 5x + 1 has a zero in the interval [1.44, 1.441]
which cannot be exactly computed.

More generally, the following simple statement holds.

Theorem 1.4
If a polynomial P is divisible by a polynomial Q, then every zero of
Q is also a zero of P .

The converse does not hold. Although every zero of x is a zero of x, x 2 2

does not divide x.

Problem 1 For which n is the polynomial x n

+ x − 1 divisible by
(a) x 2
− x + 1 , (b) x 3
− x + 1 ?

Show solution

Every nonconstant polynomial with complex coefficients has a complex

root. This result is called the fundamental theorem of algebra and we will
prove it later. For now, we are going to take it for granted and explore
some of its consequences.

The following statement is analogous to the unique factorization

theorem in arithmetics.

Theorem 1.5
Polynomial P (x) of degree n > 0 has a unique representation of
the form

P (x) = c(x − x 1 )(x − x 2 ) ⋯ (x − x n ),

not counting the ordering, where c ≠ 0 and x 1, … , xn are

complex numbers, not necessarily distinct.

Therefore, P (x) has at most deg P = n different zeros.

Show proof

Corollary
 If polynomials P and Q has degrees not exceeding n and coincide
at n + 1 different points, then they are equal.

Grouping equal factors yields the canonical representation:

α1 α2 αk
P (x) = c(x − a 1 ) (x − a 2 ) ⋯ (x − a k ) ,

where α are natural numbers with α + ⋯ + α = n. The exponent α

i 1 k i

is called the multiplicity of the root a . It is worth emphasizing that:

i

Theorem 1.6
Polynomial of n-th degree has exactly n complex roots counted
with their multiplicities.

We say that two polynomials Q and R are coprime if they have no roots
in common; Equivalently, there is no nonconstant polynomial dividing
them both, in analogy with coprimeness of integers. The following
statement is a direct consequence of the previous theorem:

Theorem 1.7 If a polynomial P is divisible by two coprime

polynomials Q and R, then it is divisible by Q ⋅ R.

Remark: This can be shown without using the existence of roots. By the
Euclidean algorithm applied on polynomials there exist polynomials K
and L such that KQ + LR = 1. Now if P = QS = RT for some
polynomials R, S , then R(KT − LS) = KQS − LRS = S , and
therefore R ∣ S and QR ∣ QS = P .

If polynomial P (x) = x
n
+ ⋯ + a1 x + a0 with real coefficients has a
–
– – –
ξ
n
complex zero , then
P ( ξ) = ξ + ⋯ + a 1 ξ + a 0 = P (ξ) = 0 . Thus:

Theorem 1.8
–
If ξ is a zero of a real polynomial P (x), then so is ξ .

In the factorization of a real polynomial P (x) into linear factors we can

group conjugated complex zeros:
–
–
P (x) = (x − r 1 ) ⋯ (x − r k )(x − ξ 1 )(x − ξ 1 ) ⋯ (x − ξ l )(x − ξ l ),

where r are the real zeros, ξ complex, and k + 2l

i = n = deg P .
–
Polynomial 2 2 2
(x − ξ)(x − ξ) = x − 2Reξ + |ξ| = x − p i x + q i has
real coefficients which satisfy p 2
i
− 4q i < 0 . This shows that:

Theorem 1.9 A real polynomial P (x) has a unique factorization (up

to the order) of the form

2 2
P (x) = (x − r 1 ) ⋯ (x − r k )(x − p 1 x + q 1 ) ⋯ (x − p l x + q l ),
 where r and p
i j, qj are real numbers with p 2
i
< 4q i and k + 2l .
= n

It follows that a real polynomial of an odd degree always has an odd

number of zeros (and at least one).

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