names) did you need to accommodate these concepts in your mind? What are the
simplest polynomial and rational function you can imagine? In your day to day, is there
any occurring fact that can be interpreted as polynomial and rational functions? What
strategy are you using to get the graph of polynomial and rational functions?
This week the focus was on both the polynomial and rational functions. A polynomial is a
mathematical expression constructed with constants and variables using the four operations:
1
In essence, we have been calculating with various polynomials all along. When two
polynomials are divided it is called a rational expression (Math Planet, 2020). The concepts
that comes to mind in relation to polynomial are variables, terms, coefficients, degree,
intercepts, roots (or zeros), like terms, unlike terms, exponents, constant term, graph,
maximum and minimum.
Polynomial: Poly- many; nomial- terms. In essence polynomial means “many terms”. A
polynomial can have variables (like x and y), exponents (like 3 in x3), but only 0, 1, 2, 3,
…..etc are allowed and constants (like 5,-3,1 or ½).
An example of a polynomial and a non-polynomial is
Polynomial: 3xy2 – 3y + 7x – 6
Non-polynomial: 2x + 3y + 2/x + 2x/y2.
The special name of the polynomial with 1, 2, or 3 terms: