# Dividing one polynomial by another!

1. Sep 5, 2011

### ProPatto16

$$\frac{r^3+3r^2+4r-8}{r-1}$$

how do i solve that?

and is there a general formula?

thanks!!

Edit by bored Borek: LaTeX corrected.

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 6, 2011
2. Sep 5, 2011

### sjb-2812

r goes into r3 how many times?

3. Sep 5, 2011

### eumyang

There is polynomial long division, which is what sjb-2812 is hinting. Synthetic division is also possible in this problem. Look both of them up.

4. Sep 5, 2011

### Staff: Mentor

Fixed your LaTeX. The SUP tags inside the itex tags were causing it to not render correctly, I believe.
$\frac{r^3+3r^2+4r-8}{r-1}$

5. Sep 5, 2011

### ProPatto16

R goes it's r^3 3 times? r.r.r?

Thanks mark. Wondered why it wasn't working.

6. Sep 5, 2011

### ProPatto16

Found a method. Thanks guys:)

7. Sep 6, 2011

### sjb-2812

Not quite. Would you say 10 goes into 1000 3 times (substituting 10 for r)? Glad you seemed to get it sorted though.

8. Sep 6, 2011

### Hurkyl

Staff Emeritus
Excellent! I think it's neat that arithmetic with polynomials is so very similar to arithmetic with integers. And not just the four arithmetic operations -- you also have other things, such as unique factorization into primes. (exercise: work out what precisely that should mean)

The analogy actually runs very, very deep -- you might see more of it if you ever go into algebraic number theory or into algebraic geometry.

9. Sep 6, 2011

### ProPatto16

r goes into r^3 r^2 times.
3 times, what a novice response -.-

all good got the solution