A general univariate (having one variable) polynomial is written as:
A general bivariate (having two variables) polynomial is written as:anxn + an-1xn-1 + an-2xn-2 + . . . + a2x2 + a1x + a0
The degree of a polynomial is the degree of the term with the highest sum of integer powers of the variables. The general univariate polynomial shown above has degree n; the general bivariate polynomial has degree n + m. The following are examples of polynomialsanmxnym + . . . a22x2y2 + a21x2y + a12xy2 + a11xy + a10x + a01y + a00
Univariate polynomial expressions have these special names:
example type degree 12x monomial 1 3.2x + 1.4y binomial 1 x3y2z2 + 2x2 + 3xy2z3 trinomial 7
expression name degree a constant 0 ax + b linear 1 ax2 + bx + c quadratic 2 ax3 + bx2 + cx + d cubic 3 ax4 + bx3 + cx2 + dx + e quartic 4 ax5 + bx4 + cx3 + dx2 + ex + f quintic 5