If (x+8)^2 - 62 = ax^2 + bx + c, find values a, b and c
Following the rules of BIDMAS, we know that the first action we take to solving this expression is expanding the brackets. To do this we must remember that (x+8)2 does not mean (x)2 + (8)2 but actually means (x+8)(x+8) where all values are multiplied by each other once. So, (x+8)2 = x2 + 8x + 8x + 64 which simplifies to x2 + 16x + 64. Now that we have expanded the brackets we can return to the rest of the expression: (x2 + 16x + 64) - 62 and this gives x2 + 16x + 2.x2 + 16x + 2= ax2 + bx + c, so a= 1 b=16 and c=2
