Remainder Theorem

and Factor Theorem

Or: how to avoid Polynomial Long Division when finding factors
Do you remember doing division in Arithmetic?

"7 divided by 2 equals 3 with a remainder of 1"

Each part of the division has names:

Which can be rewritten as a sum like this:

Polynomials
Well, we can also divide polynomials.
f(x) g(x) = q(x) with a remainder of r(x)
But it is better to write it as a sum like this:

I can show you this in an example using Polynomial Long Division:

Example: 2x2-5x-1 divided by x-3

f(x) is 2x2-5x-1

g(x) is x-3

After dividing we get the answer 2x+1, but there is a remainder of 2.

q(x) is 2x+1

r(x) is 2

In the style f(x) = g(x)q(x) + r(x) we can write:

2x2-5x-1 = (x-3)(2x+1) + 2
But you need to know one more thing:
When you divide by a polynomial of degree 1 (such as "x-3") the remainder will have degree 0
(in other words a constant, like "4").
And we are going to use that idea in the "Remainder Theorem":

The Remainder Theorem

When you divide a polynomial f(x) by x-c you get:
f(x) = (x-c)q(x) + r(x)
But r(x) is simply the constant r (remember? when you divide by (x-c) the remainder is a
constant) .... so we get this:
f(x) = (x-c)q(x) + r

Now see what happens when you have x equal to c:

f(c) = (c-c)q(c) + r
f(c) = (0)q(c) + r
f(c) = r
So we get this:
The Remainder Theorem:
When you divide a polynomial f(x) by x-c the remainder r will be f(c)
So if you want to know the remainder after dividing by x-c you don't need to do any division:
Just calculate f(c).
Let us see that in practice:

Example: 2x2-5x-1 divided by x-3

(Continuing our example from above)
We don't need to divide by (x-3) ... just calculate f(3):
2(3)2-5(3)-1 = 2x9-5x3-1 = 18-15-1 = 2
And that is the remainder we got from our calculations above.
We didn't need to do Long Division at all!

Example: Dividing by x-4

(Continuing our examplee)

What would the remainder be if we divided by "x-4" ?

"c" is 4, so let us check f(4):
2(4)2-5(4)-1 = 2x16-5x4-1 = 32-20-1 = 11

Once again ... We didn't need to do Long Division to find it.

The Factor Theorem

Now ...
What if you calculated f(c) and it was 0?
... that means the remainder is 0, and ...
... (x-c) must be a factor of the polynomial!

Example: x2-3x-4
f(4) = (4)2-3(4)-4 = 16-12-4 = 0
so (x-4) must be a factor of x2-3x-4
And so we have:
The Factor Theorem:
When f(c)=0 then x-c is a factor of the polynomial
And the other way around, too:
When x-c is a factor of the polynomial then f(c)=0