Concept 1

Upper and lower bounds

Finding the least integer:
To find upper and lower bounds, use synthetic division. Start by dividing the original polynomial by the 1. Check if all the coefficients are all of the same sign. If they are, 1 is the upper bound and -1 is the lower bound. If they are not, check 1. If the coefficients are all of the same sign, the upper bound is 1 and the lower bound is -2. If they are not, move to 2 and so on. Example: Find the least integer upper and lower bounds of the real roots of the following polynomial: 1|

x n + an 1 x n 1 + an 2 x n 3 + an 4 x n 4 + ... + a0
3

2 -1 -10 2 2 2 1 1

-9 -7

-9 -7 -4

1 is not an upper bound. -1| 2 -1 -10 2 -2 2 -3 3 -7 3

7 -9 9 -6

-1 is not a lower bound. 2| 2 -1 -10 2 4 2 3 3

6 -8 -12 -4 -6 -9

2 is not an upper bound.

-2|

2 -1 -10 2 -4 2 -5 0 2

3 1

10 0 -4

-2 is not a lower bound. 3| 2 -1 -10 2 6 2 5 5 3

15 15 51 17 54

3 is an upper bound. We can conclude that -3any real zero of f3.

Finding the bounds while solving:

To find upper and lower bounds, use synthetic division. This time, check for each rational root instead of each integer.