How do you evaluate the function $p(x)=x^2-2$ for $p(-2)$ ?

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Answer 1 · 2018-05-14T12:48:42

$p(-2)=2$

$p(x)=x^2-2$

When $x=-2$ , $p(x)=p(-2)$

$p(-2)=(-2)^2-2$
$color(white)(p(-2))=2$

Answer 2 · 2018-05-14T12:51:10

I tried this:

When you write:

$p(-2)$

it means that you want to evaluate your function for $x=-2$ , so you need to subtitute $x$ for $-2$ in $p$ :

$p(-2)=(-2)^2-2$

as you can see $x$ became $-2$ . Let us evaluate the value of our function at this value of $x$ :

$p(-2)=color(red)(4)-2=2$

because: $(-2)^2=4$

How do you evaluate the function p(x)=x^2-2p(x)=x^2-2 for p(-2)p(-2)?