Real Roots Of 4 term polynomial that equates to 0?

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No that's all good. I've just realised that you and Worzo were saying slightly different things. They will always be factors in that sense yes...but I was just clarifying that only checking the integer factors isn't good enough in general.

EDIT: Infact, although it's not particularly grand, it is a well known result, so it's pretty cool that you came up with it innocently.

Reply 21

dvs

Going a bit further, we can actually reach the "rational roots theorem."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_root_theorem

Reply 22

7589200

Oh OK - that makes sense. Should have spotted that! Nice.

Reply 23

AlphaNumeric

Spenceman_

but I was just clarifying that only checking the integer factors isn't good enough in general.

If the coefficent of the highest power term is 1 and you've got integer coefficents elsewhere, you'll get integer roots (for elaboration see DVS's link). True, if you were doing something related to the real work for a project you dont' get such nice polynomials but for GCSE and A Level you'll always be given nice ones.