Simplify: 8p^4+6q^4.

Question

8p^4+6q^4.

It's with polynomials being added and subtracted

The numbers next to the ^ are the exponents that are in the equation.

Answer 1

Hi Bailey!

So you'll notice here that p and q are different variables, meaning we can't combine them. In these cases, we can factor out the greatest common factor to simplify it a bit.

8p^4 + 6q^4 // We can factor out a 2 from 8 and 6. Keep the 2 in front of the parenthesis and divide each term by 2 to get what's inside the parenthesis.

2(4p^4 + 3q^4)

After this there's not much else to simplify. You might be able to do something with the fact that p and q are both to the power of 4, but that would be a much more advanced concept and usually it is not used too often in high school math. If you're interested in what that solution would look like (it actually yields a more complicated answer in the end), then let me know and I'd be happy to provide it for you, but otherwise this should probably do the trick for the topic you guys are going over. Thanks for your time and let me know if you have any questions!

Anika