Graphical Behavior
Finding Zeros
Two ways to find the zeros of the function are factoring and graphing. Factoring polynomials will be discussed in a later section, however, recall from the quadratic unit, the factored form of a function is y = (x - R1)(x - R2). To write polynomials in factored form, there will be the same number of factors as there are roots. Therefore a 4th degree polynomial might be written as P(x) = (x - R1)(x - R2)(x - R3)(x - R4).
Remember that once a polynomial is factored, setting each factor equal to 0 and solving will determine the roots or x-intercepts. When graphing, sometimes the zeros can be determined just by looking at the graph or table for the function.