Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. (context mathematics English) a polynomial equation of the second degree.
WordNet
n. an equation in which the highest power of an unknown quantity is a square [syn: quadratic]
Wikipedia
In elementary algebra, a quadratic equation (from the Latin quadratus for " square") is any equation having the form
ax + bx + c = 0
where represents an unknown, and , , and represent known numbers such that is not equal to . If , then the equation is linear, not quadratic. The numbers , , and are the coefficients of the equation, and may be distinguished by calling them, respectively, the quadratic coefficient, the linear coefficient and the constant or free term.
Because the quadratic equation involves only one unknown, it is called " univariate". The quadratic equation only contains powers of that are non-negative integers, and therefore it is a polynomial equation, and in particular it is a second degree polynomial equation since the greatest power is two.
Quadratic equations can be solved by a process known in American English as factoring and in other varieties of English as factorising, by completing the square, by using the quadratic formula, or by graphing. Solutions to problems equivalent to the quadratic equation were known as early as 2000 BC.
Usage examples of "quadratic equation".
Angrily, he wipes away the tears as he recites the quadratic equation, the Fibonacci sequence to a thousand, pi to the twenty-second digit, which is as far as he’.
It's like any algebraic general case, like the general quadratic equation for instance.
Did your mathematical studies ever reach to the quadratic equation, Stephen?
And all the while in the back of her mind, that whispering suspicion nagged at her, the feeling of being faced with a quadratic equation, with two solutions.
She was back to the quadratic equation again, with positive and negative solutions, and no way of telling which was which.
Although he didn't know it (having pretty much dozed through that part of Nerd Math), he had reinvented the general quadratic equation in two variables, which can indeed be used to isolate components in a simple mathematical series.
All the same, I felt a great deal of sympathy for Sandy, even though she was never going to figure out just what the quadratic equation was all about.
If there's a formula - some binomial theorem or quadratic equation or something like that - I don't see it.
The comet's been on its way possibly since the first humans climbed down out of the trees, and this day was marked on some cosmic calendar with all the inevitability of a quadratic equation.