Expand in terms of ascending powers of x
what is (7-4x)^6
4 Answers
Use Pascal's Δ 1
1 1
1 2 1
1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1
1 5 10 10 5 1
1 6 15 20 15 6 1
(a + b)6 = a6 + 6a5b + 15a4b2 + 20a3b3 + 15a2b4 + 6ab5 + b6
1. If you notice, that coefficients are from the bottom of Pascal 's triangle.
2. The powers of a go down, from 6 to 0;
3. The exponents of b go up, from 0 to 6;
4. The sum of the powers of each therm equal 6;
5. If you multiply all coefficients you will get 26 = 64 (for each row of Pascal's Δ 2n)
Now replace a by 7 and b by (-4x)
76 - 6 · 75 · 4x + 15 · 74 · (-4x)2 - 20 · 73 · (4x)3 + 15 · 72 · (-4x)4 - 6 · 7 · (4x)5 + (-4x)6
(7 – 4x)^6
= 7^6 + (6*7^5)(-4x) + (15*7^4)(-4x)^2 + (20*7^3)(-4x)^3 + (15*7^2)(-4x)^4 + (6*7) (-4x)^5 + (-4x)^6
= 7^6 - (6*7^5)(4x) + (15*7^4)(16x^2) - (20*7^3)(64 x^3) + (15*7^2)(256 x^4) - (6*7)(1024 x^5) + 4096
The rest is arithmetic.
You can use binomial expansion.
(7-4x)^6 = ∑{i = 0, 6} C(6, i) (7)^(6-i) (-4x)^i
You can expand binomials using Pascal's Triangle to find the exponents
1
1 1
1 2 1
1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1
1 5 10 10 5 1 n=6
This can be formed by starting with 1, then row 2 is 1,1, then the two ones in row two add to make the 2 in row 3, etc.
rewrite the binomial as (-4x+7)6 for simplicity's sake
We split the binomial into 2 terms and the exponent for x decreases while the other exponent increases, then multiply by the appropriate number in Pascal's Triangle.
1(-4x)6(7)0= -4096x6
5(-4x)5(7)1= -35840x5
etc...



Comments
There were two answers from yesterday that were not posted when I posted my response. Had they been present I would not have replicated their efforts. The tedious nature of Wyzant withtheir sluggish responses caused this duplicity.
- George C. 3/19/2013George- I feel the same way, sometimes I will submit an answer and it comes up instantly and sometimes it takes days. Very frustrating.
- Shannon M. 3/24/2013