I understood how to do Partial fraction decomposition in class but my answers on the homework made me think I was doing it wrong. The homework was P.277 #6, 16, 20, 22, 45 just in case the other class had different numbers.
For question #16 I found that A multiplied by -1 made it equal to B.
I had the same result for question #20.
The example we did in class had A = -1 and B = 2. Those aren't negatives of each other like the first two questions we had to solve for homework.
Question #22 was different though. A wasn't a negative of B. Instead A = 0 and the entire equation reduced to 1⁄x+3. It reduced to that even if you didn't find B. If either A or B are equal to 0 then could you just reduce the fraction instead?
Question #45 was the only one that didn't seem to have a weird relationship between A and B. I solved it normally and got the right answer after checking.
Overall I understood what to do and checked my answer. The check worked for all of them but I was thrown off because of the relationship of A and B in questions 16, 20 and 22. Is it possible that A can be the same as B or that A times -1 is equal to B? Or could I have possibly done something wrong?
I don't see why that couldn't be true them equaling eachother wouldn't change the x values of the x's you use to set each denomenator to 0. And thus wouldn't affect our asymtotes and therefore leave the graph how it should be. So yeah I wouldn't worry.....I need to learn how to spell some of these math words
ReplyDeleteThank you August: Before opening your comment I was prepared to write the same thing. Weld dome!
ReplyDeleteKhari...Thank you for such keen attention to detail in your work. I will look for some of the same from your cohorts.
ReplyDeleteFor #22 that's really interesting and I think a lot if people will run into that issue on different problems. Now I am wondering about reducing the fraction as well. Also, I had trouble with #6 the other day I'm pretty sure I made a mistake but when I went through to check I only found something that made me more confused.
ReplyDeleteMr. Fedirko, do you think we could go over the procedural part of decomposition again?
ReplyDeleteThank you Tashi, yes: We'll go over #22 in class and I will be asking everyone to look for patterns that may help generalize these procedures.
ReplyDelete