I aked the instructor about that problem that looked like this:
(w-(1)/(4))^2
and he said that what i thought was right. which was :
the answer:w^2-(1)/(2)w+(1)/(6)
Yes, that's right. I just thought your way of getting the answer was more complicated than it could have been.
With the placement of the parentheses in your answer I can't tell what you have, but I can tell you for sure that what Belinda wrote yesterday; i.e.,
[(w-1)/4]2 =
(w2 -2w +1)/16 is correct. That answer may be modified somewhat by certain arithmetic procedures but squaring w-1 MUST give, at least as a first step, w2 -2w +1.
see dr.bob222
then why did the instructor say that this was wrong about
w2 -2w +1
he said it had to be:
w squared and negative one half w plus one over sixteen.
We aren't working the same problem. And the reason for that is that you didn't use parentheses correctly. You are working this problem.
(w-(1)/(4))^2
Written as you should have written it is
[w-(1/4)]2
That give you
w2 - 0.5w + 1/16 which agrees with your previous answer and the teacher's answer.
I worked this one
[(w-1)/4]2
which gives the answer I posted yesterday.
(w2 -2w + 1)/16
I hope this clears things up.
It seems like there might be some confusion between you and the instructor regarding the answer to the problem.
The problem is to find the square of the expression (w-(1/4)). The correct way to write this expression with proper parentheses is [w-(1/4)]^2.
You and the instructor both agree on the correct squared expression, which is:
(w^2 - (1/2)w + (1/16))
However, there seems to be a different interpretation of the answer given by the instructor. You wrote that the instructor said the answer should be "w squared and negative one half w plus one over sixteen." This is the same as the expression (w^2 - (1/2)w + (1/16)).
So, it seems that you and the instructor are actually saying the same thing, just with slightly different ways of expressing it. The instructor's way of writing it as "w squared and negative one half w plus one over sixteen" is equivalent to the correct squared expression (w^2 - (1/2)w + (1/16)).
I hope this clears up the confusion and explains the agreement between you and the instructor on the answer to the problem.