Numbers Resources Teaching The Symmetry That Makes Solving Math Equations Easy — Quanta Magazine My latest column for Quanta Magazine is about one of the most dreaded mathematical objects in high school math: the quadratic formula!
As complicated as the quadratic formula is, the cubic formula is much worse, but a simple geometric idea connects the two.
As intimidating as this looks, hiding inside is a simple secret that makes solving every quadratic equation easy: symmetry. Let’s look at how symmetry makes the quadratic formula work and how a lack of symmetry makes solving cubic equations much, much harder. So much harder, in fact, that a few mathematicians in the 1500s spent their lives embroiled in bitter public feuds competing to do for cubics what was so easily done for quadratics.