Roots of Polynomials

Posted by Beetle B. on Thu 09 December 2021

Every polynomial with real coefficients can be written as a product of linear or quadratic terms, each having real coefficients.

Proof: We know that a polynomial of degree \(n\) has \(n\) roots. If any of these roots is complex, so is its complex conjugate. Rewrite the polynomial as:

\begin{equation*} f(x)=a\left(x-c_{1}\right)\left(x-c_{2}\right) \cdots\left(x-c_{n}\right) \end{equation*}

And combine terms where the complex roots are conjugates of each other.

Now if a polynomial has integer coefficients, we can search for rational roots. If one exists and is of the form \(c/d\), then \(c\) is a factor of \(a_{0}\) and \(d\) is a factor of \(a_{n}\).

Using this, you can easily enumerate all possible rational roots.