Question

Viete's Formulas - what are they used for?

Answer 1

For quadratics, these formulas are used mainly for factoring.

Your equation can be written as ...

... 2(x² +2x -3) = 0

You factor this by looking for factors of -3 (c=x1·x2) that add to give +2 (b=-(x1+x2)). These are {-1, +3}, so the factorization is ...

... 2(x -1)(x +3) = 0

The roots are then 1 and -3, which sum to -b = -2.

(You will note that the numbers used in the binomial factors are the opposites of the roots x1 and x2 in the Viete's Formulas. That is how we can look for them to sum to "b", rather than "-b".)