## Synthetic division or Long division of polynomials?

How do i know under which circumstances to use synthetic and when to just do regular polynomial division? do they not both give the same results?

 Recognitions: Homework Help Yes, they give the same results. They are just 2 different methods for the same thing, I prefer the long division though.
 Synthetic division only works if you are dividing a polynomial by a linear factor..

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## Synthetic division or Long division of polynomials?

In fact, only when dividing by something of the form x-a.

Synthetic division is just a simplified way of writing a division of that very special (but very important) form.

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 Quote by derekjn Synthetic division only works if you are dividing a polynomial by a linear factor..
There is a generalization to arbitrary polynomials

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 Hi i find them to go together, hand in hand. for instance, we have this problem: 8x^6 + 7x^3 -1 i use synthetic division to find that -1 is a solution, hence i have a factor that is: (x-1) now, to look for the rest of the factors, i use long division to divide (8x^6 + 7x^3 -1) by (x-1); :)