How To Solve Algebraic Equations

Hi, my name's Charles and I'm one of the teachers from the Maxim Workshop. I'm just going to now do some Maths. I'm going to show you how to solve "Algebraic Equations".

Now, the basic Algebraic Equation that you might be familiar with is a Linear Equation and that's where you have the variable of a power to the one, okay? So, if we take a look at a particular Linear Equation, we might have something like this, Y = MX + C. Okay, now this is an equation that you'll use a lot throughout G.C.

S.E. It's typically the equation that maps a Linear graph.

Okay, so what we want to do is to solve for one of these variables, i.e. make the subject.

So i'll pick any variable and I'll go for C. So what I want to do is make C the subject. Okay, so if you look at this, you've got C + MX which reads both ways, MX + C.

So what we want to do is get C alone on the right hand side. All you'll have to do is take MX over to the other side. So MX together is a positive.

So, we have Y - MX = C. That's how to solve for C, imagine if we would want to start off with this same equation and solve for M. What we would have to do is remember again we want M to be alone on this side.

So just like an onion skin, we would have to see what occurs, what operates on M. First of all, we have them two multiplied by X and then the second operation, we add C to that. So what we would have to do if we wanted to get to the root of our onion, we would have to take out the outer layer first, and that is our C.

So we take the C to the other side. C is positive, so if we take it to the other side, it becomes negative. So we've got Y - C = MX.

Now as you can see, M is still being multiplied by X so you want to take X to the other side now. If we look at the operation that it's performing on M, it's multiplying. So if we take it to the other side, it's going to be dividing.

Now remember, it has to divide the whole side. So if we take X over to the other side, we've got Y, take away C divided by X, and that equals M. So we've solved for M and that's basically how we solve Algebraic Equations. .