How do you factor $5x^3 + 40y^6$ ?

Question

3494 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2015-05-18T21:35:17

You can use a formula for a sum of cubes:
$a^3+b^3=(a+b)*(a^2-ab+b^2)$

Notice that $40y^6=5*8*y^6=5*2^3*(y^2)^3=5*(2y^2)^3$

Using the above formula for $a=x$ and $b=2y^2$ and factoring out constant $5$ , we get:
$5x^3+40y^6 =5x^3+5(2y^2)^3=5(x+2y^2)(x^2-2xy^2+4y^4))$

How do you factor 5x^3 + 40y^65x^3 + 40y^6?