Expert: Bobby Soltani - 6/29/2005

Question
Hello I am a tutor for high school and middle school algebra students. I have one student who is extremely bright and always asks the most intriguing questions. When I was explaining the formula that is the solution for the quadratic equation (you know, X= (-B+-Square Root(B^2-4AC))/2A) He asked me if there is a formula to solve equations of a higher order such as AX^3+BX^2+CX+D=O and so on. I must admit I had never thought of that, and it was not in his text book. So I told him I would find out. That's where you come in. Would you know the answer to this question? I would greatly appreciate it because as an algebra tutor, I like to think there is no algebra question that can stump me, but this one did.

thanks,

James Schendel

Answer
Hi James,

There are formula's for solving higher order equations such as cubics and quartics, but they are very complex compared to the quadratic equation.  I found one example here.

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.cubic.equations.html

It is usually easier to solve them using some other method.

I hope this helps.

Bobby