The Polynomial Resultant by Bless Bah Awazi '24

The Polynomial Resultant by Bless Bah Awazi ’24, Monday April 1, 1:00 – 1:50pm, North Science Building 113, Wachenheim, Mathematics Colloquium

Abstract: The problem of finding the roots of a polynomial is a historically challenging task. With this in mind, we consider a different question: how do we know if two polynomials share a common root? In this talk, we introduce a quantity known as the resultant of two polynomials, which is equal to zero if and only if the polynomials have a common root. We then go on to derive the resultant as a polynomial expression of the coefficients of the two polynomials.