Now if this is the first time that youve seen this type of whats essentially a quadratic equation you might be tempted to try to solve for s using traditional algebraic means but the best way to solve this especially when its explicitly equal to 0 is to factor the left-hand side and then think about the fact that those binomials that you factor into that they have to be equal to 0. For right now lets focus our attention on solving simple quadratic equations using a few strategies that you are already familiar with. They are also called roots or sometimes zeros There are usually 2 solutions as shown in this graph.
Then we plug these coefficients in the formula.
In other words a quadratic equation must have a squared term as its highest power. Combine all of the like terms and move them to one side of the equation. Below are the 4 methods to solve quadratic equations. Click on any link to learn more about a method.