How do you factor the expression 3x^3-27x?

1 Answer
Mar 19, 2018

See a solution process below:

Explanation:

First, we can rewrite and factor as x3 out of this expression as:

(3x * x^2) - (3x * 9) =>

3x(x^2 - 9)

Now we can use this formula for the special case of this quadratic to complete the factoring:

color(red)(x)^2 - color(blue)(y)^2 = (color(red)(x) + color(blue)(y))(color(red)(x) - color(blue)(y))

3x(x^2 - 9) =>

3x(color(red)(x)^2 - color(blue)(3)^2) =>

3x(color(red)(x) + color(blue)(3))(color(red)(x) - color(blue)(3))