General Question

gorillapaws's avatar

Can you help with this algebra problem?

Asked by gorillapaws (30558points) May 23rd, 2018
4 responses
“Great Question” (1points)

My algebra skills are pretty rusty. I’ve got an equation:
x = ( (a^2) / b ) + a

I’m trying to solve this for “a” and coming up short. Thanks for any help.

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Answers

ragingloli's avatar

seems like URLs dislike exponents.
https://tinyurl.com/ycxtavhx

gorillapaws's avatar

@ragingloli Thanks! I didn’t realize wolframalpha could solve those types of problems.

LostInParadise's avatar

It is just a second order polynomial. (a^2)/b + a – x =0. The quadratic formula applies. The unknown is a, with 1/b for the coefficient of the square term, 1 for the linear term and – x as the constant term.

Simplify the calculation by multiplying both sides of the equation by b, assuming b is not 0.
a^^2 + ba – bx = 0. The quadratic formula is x = 1/(2a) (- b +/- sqrt(b^^2 – 4ac). In this case, substitute 1 for a, b for b and -bx for c.

Then you get the same answer as Wolframalpha. I don’t know why they broke the square root into two parts.

a = [ – b +/- sqrt(b^2 + 4bx)]/2

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