Quick questions on Roots and coefficients of polynomials: Vieta's formulas for cubics and quartics

2short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.

What are constructing a polynomial from its roots?

Show answer

If the roots are

\alpha_1, \dots, \alpha_n

, the monic polynomial with these roots is

What is sign errors on the

^k

alternation?

Show answer

Sum is negative of the next coefficient, sum-in-pairs is plus the one after, sum-in-triples is negative again. Track the signs carefully.

Have a question we have not covered?

This dot-point answer is short enough that we have not extracted many short questions yet. Read the full dot-point answer or ask Mo, our study assistant, in the chat for follow ups.