In this explainer, we will learn how to multiply polynomial expressions together by expanding the parentheses.
In order to multiply any two polynomial expressions together, we should first recall how we multiply a polynomial by a single term (i.e., monomial). We distribute the multiplication over each term in the polynomial. For example,
We can apply this exact same process to multiply any two polynomials. Consider the product . This is not quite in the same form since neither factor is a monomial; however, we can treat the factor of as a single term. This means we just multiply each term of by the entire factor of :
Each term is now the product of a monomial and binomial, so we can expand:
Finally, we collect like terms:
Hence, we have shown that
We can simplify this process by noting that we just find the product of all of the terms of each factor and then combine like terms:
We can apply this process to find the product of any two polynomials; we distribute one factor over every term in the second factor, expand, and then simplify.
In general, we can expand the product of binomials by finding the sum of the product of each pair of terms from both factors.
Letβs see an example of applying this process to find the product of two binomials.
Example 1: Expanding the Product of Two Binomials and Simplifying
Expand the product .
Answer
We are asked to expand the product of two binomials; we can do this by distributing the first factor over every term in the second factor. So, we multiply by and 6 by and add the results:
We can expand each term by distributing the first factor over each binomial:
We can now simplify each term by recalling that and collecting like terms:
A special case of multiplying binomials is when we multiply the same binomial by itself, in other words, squaring a binomial. We can use this expansion method to find an expression for the square of a binomial:
We have the following result.
Property: Squaring a Binomial
We can square a binomial by finding the sum of the product of each pair of terms from both factors. We obtain
In our next example, we will expand and simplify the square of a binomial.
Example 2: Squaring a Binomial and Simplifying
Expand .
Answer
We are asked to expand the square of a binomial. We can do this by first recalling that squaring means multiplying a number by itself. So,
We can now expand this product by finding the product of each pair of terms from either factor and adding the results:
Finally, we combine like terms to obtain
We can also answer this question by recalling that we can square a binomial using the formula
Substituting and into the formula yields
In our next example, we will expand and simplify the product of two binomials with multiple variables and negative coefficients.
Example 3: Expanding the Product of Two Binomials with Mixed Terms and Simplifying
Expand and simplify .
Answer
We can expand this product by finding the product of each pair of terms from either factor and adding the results:
We can now simplify each term by using the laws of indices:
Finally, we can collect like terms:
We can apply this process of expanding the product to any polynomial. For example, letβs expand the product .
We distribute the first factor over each term in the second factor:
It is worth noting that we could have also distributed the second factor over each term in the first factor. It is a personal preference which method to use; however, it is usually easiest to distribute the factor with the most terms over the factor with the least terms.
We can now expand and simplify by using the laws of indices and collecting like terms:
In general, we need to find the sum of the product of each pair of terms from both sets of parentheses.
Letβs now see an example of applying this process to expand and simplify the product of a trinomial and binomial.
Example 4: Multiplying a Binomial by a Trinomial and Simplifying
Expand and simplify .
Answer
To expand the product of two polynomials, we need to distribute the product of one polynomial over each term in the other. Letβs start by distributing the product of over each term in the binomial:
We can now expand each of the two terms, distributing the first factor over each trinomial.
For the first term, we have
For the second term, we have
We can now add these expressions together and collect like terms to simplify. We obtain
In our next example, we will expand the cube of a binomial and simplify to identify the equivalent polynomial expression.
Example 5: Cubing a Binomial and Simplifying
Determine which of the following expressions is equivalent to .
Answer
We want to expand the cube of a binomial to identify which of five given polynomials is an equivalent expression. We can do this by successively multiplying the binomial factors. First, we have
We can start off by finding the product of two of the factors. To do this, we take the product of each pair of terms from the first parentheses with the second parentheses and add the results:
We can now substitute this expression into our product of three binomials:
We can expand the product of two polynomials by distributing one factor over each term in the other factor. We will choose to distribute the first factor over the terms in the second factor:
Performing this multiplication for each term separately, we have
We can then add these expressions and combine like terms:
This is answer A.
In our next example, we will use this process of multiplying polynomials to find a simplified expression for a shaded region.
Example 6: Finding the Area of a Rectangular Shape
A rectangle with dimensions and is cut out from a larger rectangle with dimensions and . Find a simplified expression for the shaded area.
Answer
We can find an expression for the shaded area by finding the area of the larger rectangle and subtracting the area of the smaller rectangle from the area of the larger rectangle. We need to find the product of the dimensions of each rectangle to find their areas.
We can do this by distributing the product of one factor over each term in the other factor.
For the larger rectangle, we have
We can distribute the monomials over the polynomials to get
We can add these expressions together and collect like terms to find the area of the larger rectangle:
For the smaller rectangle, we have
We now need to subtract the area of the smaller rectangle from the area of the larger rectangle:
In our final example, we will expand the product of three binomials to find the values of unknown coefficients.
Example 7: Finding the Unknowns in an Expression by Multiplying Three Binomials
If , what are the values of , , , and ?
Answer
On the left-hand side of the equation, we have the product of three binomials and on the right-hand side of the equation, we have a polynomial. We can find a polynomial expression equivalent to the left-hand side of the equation by expanding the product.
Letβs start with expanding the first two products. We find the sum of the products of each pair of terms in either factor to obtain
We can now substitute this expression into the product of the three binomials to obtain
We can expand this product by distributing the product of one factor over each term in the other factor:
We are told that this is equal to ; for the polynomials to be equal, their coefficients must be equal. Thus, , , , and .
Letβs finish by recapping some of the important points from this explainer.
Key Points
- We can multiply two polynomials by multiplying every term of one polynomial by the other entire polynomial and summing the results. We can then simplify by combining like terms.
- The product of any two polynomials can also be found by multiplying every pair of terms from each of the polynomials and summing the results.
- We can expand a polynomial to a positive integer power by evaluating the products in pairs.