Hi, Elanham3. What you're lookin at here is a quadratic equation. Now, they're actually pretty easy to solve, if you know how to. A quadratic equation can a lot of the time be expressed as 2 binomials. From looking at the first part, x^2, we can see the first part of each binomial-x. Also, all of the symbols in the quadratic equation are positive, so we know that they are also positive in the simplified form. So, the 2 binomials are (x+ )(x+ ). Then, we need to find the 2 factors of 48 that add together to get 26. So-
1*48 No
2*24 Maybe...
2+24=26- That's it!
Now that we know this, we know both of the binonials. The full equation is now
(x+24)(x+2)=0
Check it-
x^2+24x+2x+48
x^2+26x+48- That's right.
Now, the original equation was equal to zero, so we set both equal to zero, because if x= either of those, because anything X zero= Zero.
(x+24)=0 (x+2)=0
x=-24 and x=-2
Those are your solutions.
Hope it helps!