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3 votes
3 votes
Can someone help? Work out the missing numbers in the identity

__ (p²-2) - p(2p³- __) =p(p²-2) + 3 p​

User Astr
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1 Answer

5 votes
5 votes

Explanation:

I hope you wrote the equation correctly.

there could be parts missing. and exponents be wrong.

I am concerned, because the missing parts are not just numbers. they are full terms in the variable p.

so, well, the right side is

p³ - 2p + 3p = p³ + p

on the left side we have

a(p² -2) - p(2p³ - b)

ap² - 2a - 2p⁴ - pb

so, the first thing we see : we need to eliminate the p⁴ terms, because there are none on the right side.

so,

a = 2p²

that gives us

2p⁴ - 4p² - 2p⁴ - pb = -4p² - pb

let's see, if we can create the missing items just by "b" (and we have to get rid of -4p²) when we bring left and right sides together again :

-4p² - pb = p³ + p

p³ + p + 4p² = -pb

b = (p³ + p + 4p²)/-p = -p² - 1 - 4p

so,

the equation would look like

2p²(p² - 2) - p(2p³ - (-p² - 1 - 4p)) = p(p² - 2) + 3p

which could be also written as

2p²(p² - 2) - p(2p³ + p² + 1 + 4p) = p(p² - 2) + 3p

User Solomon Suraj
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3.4k points