So my chem prof (we're doing C of hydrogen/hydroxide) just showed us how to solve for +-b^14 using the good ol' quadratic formula. I objected thatit can only be used on quadratic funcs ie the power of 2. I was rebuffed, including by my classmates, many of whom are in calc. Am i wrong here??
lol math is useless bro
shut the fuck up
>>7966387
>+-b^14
what does that mean?
If you want to see how quadratic equations are used, and in some cases simplified under certain assumptions, in equilibria, see chapters 6-8 of this
http://libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=AB1997FB4F02E54E8D17789F27CAF1D2
>>7966407
Trolling? On 4chan?? What, you have a tough day, tiger?
>>7966387
You haven't:
-even really phrased a coherent question,
-given a coherent description of what your chemistry class is doing at the moment,
-or even really managed to use decent grammar and spelling in your OP.
Furthermore, since I can quickly brainstorm a possible refutation for what you might be trying to say, although I don't fully understand (because you haven't managed to state your problem), all of this leads me to believe that your teacher and fellow students were right to gang up on you, whatever the issue was.
But here's my guess of what you're trying to say. The thing is, certain polynomials of higher degree actually look very much like quadratics, and so if you simply make a substitution, you end up with a quadratic, in which case the quadratic formula applies. Let's say that you have a variable b, and a polynomial equation which looks like the first part. If we simply declare a new variable x, (we can do this), set it equal to b^7, and re-phrase in terms of that variable, then we can at least solve for b^7. Perhaps knowing something about b^7 tells us something about b itself depending on what you're doing, etc:
[math] \displaystyle b^{14} - 2 b^{7} - 5 = 0 \;\;\; \rightarrow \;\;\; x = b^{7} \;\;\; \rightarrow \;\;\; x^{2} - 2x - 5 = 0 \;\;\; \rightarrow \;\;\; b^{7} = 1 \pm \sqrt{6} \;\;\; \rightarrow \;\;\; b = \sqrt[7]{ 1 \pm \sqrt{6} } [/math]
Or, maybe you're just making a goof about the usual b term in a common phrasing of the quadratic formula and what I just posted has nothing to do with your problem. I can't possibly know since you didn't write a coherent OP.
>>7966426
You've now put far, far more thought into this than OP. Thanks though, as I had the same thoughts.
>>7966426
>>7966387
Given OP's post. I can only conclude that he's talking about equilibrium concentration calculations since that's the only place where you obtain quadratic equations in elementary chemistry.
OP, If you end up with an unknown that it's quadratic, yes you may the quadratic formula, however if the dissociation value is small enough, you may approximate it to a linear function and not need to, which is probably what your classmates are telling you.
>source: Physical Chemist
>>7966387
The constant for a chemical balance is called K, not C.
Just saying.
