Anne_Boleyn said:
Can anyone please help?
2x² - x + 1 < 9Edit: This is what I've done so far
2x² - x - 8 < 0
2 [ x² - 1/2x - 4] < 0
2(x - 1/2)² - 17/4 < 0
Uhmm, let f(x) = ax
2 + bx + c, and let the equation f(x) = 0 has 2 real roots x
1, and x
2, such that x
1 < x
2. We choose a arbitrary x
0 value. We have:
[tex]af(x_0) < 0 \Leftrightarrow x_0 \in ]x_1 , \ x_2[[/tex]
[tex]af(x_0) > 0 \Leftrightarrow x_0 \notin ]x_1 , \ x_2[[/tex]
Or in other words:
x
0 is in the interval ]x
1, x
2[ if and only if the
leading coefficient a, and f(x
0) takes different signs, i.e if a is positive, then f(x
0) is negative, and vice versa.
x
0 is
not in the interval ]x
1, x
2[ if and only if the leading coefficient a, and f(x
0) takes the same sign, i.e if a is positive, then f(x
0) is also positive, and vice versa.
---------------
I'll give you an example:
Example:
Solve the inequality:
x
2 + 5x + 4 < 0
<=> (x + 4) (x + 1) < 0
-4, and -1 are the 2 roots for this equation.
Let f(x) = x
2 + 5x + 4
The
leading coefficient of f(x) is 1 > 0
And you have to solve for f(x) < 0, i.e, you will have to find all the value x such that f(x) and the coefficient take
different signs, so the solution is
<=> -4 < x < -1
Can you get this? :)