ejo said:
Hey could anyone help me factorise the following:
8x^2 - 30xy + 27y^2
Thanks it would be a great help if you factorised it for me.
Yes there is a way to factorise this... And when we did it wasnt by trial and error mate.
Okay do you know how to factorise 8x^2-30x+27?
This is factorised by the cross method which you should be familiar with. Or other methods i.e quadratic or changing it to a monic factorisation but never mind that now. When factorised it should be (4x - 9)(2x - 3)
Lets expand this to make sure. (4x - 9)(2x - 3) = 8x^2-12x-18x+27 = 8x^2-30x+27.
Now your question is 8x^2 - 30xy + 27y^2 which only adds a y on the second term and y^2 on the last term. When they do this you just add a y to the second term in the brackets of (4x - 9)(2x - 3). which gives you
(4x - 9y)(2x - 3y).
If you dont get this dont worry. Its not really needed in the hsc that is factorising a quadratic with two variables.