Final answer:
The equation x^2 = −7x − 8 can be solved by rearranging it to x^2 + 7x + 8 = 0 and then factorizing to find the solutions x = -1 and x = -8.
Step-by-step explanation:
The solutions of the equation x^2 = −7x − 8 can be found by first rearranging the equation into standard quadratic form, which becomes x^2 + 7x + 8 = 0. We can solve this by factorizing or using the quadratic formula. To factorize, we look for two numbers that multiply to give 8 and add to give 7. These numbers are 1 and 8. Therefore, we can express the equation as (x + 1)(x + 8) = 0. This gives us the solutions x = -1 and x = -8. To check the reasonableness of our answer, we substitute the values back into the original equation to ensure they satisfy it.