The expansion of the binomial product #(x-a)(x-b) = x^2 - 11x + 18#, determine the values for both #a# and #b#?

1 Answer

#a=# either 9 or 2. #b=# the other value (either 2 or 9)

Explanation:

One way we can do this is to see that

#-axx-b=18#

and

#-a-b=-11#

See that with the first equation, we don't have many iterations of possible solutions to run through before we get to one of the values being #9# and the other being #2# (we verify them using the second equation).