How do you solve using the completing the square method 3x^2 - 2x - 2 = 0?

1 Answer
May 10, 2017

Isolate the x terms and complete the square.

Explanation:

First, we start by adding 2 to both sides to isolate the variable terms:
3x^2-2x=2

We can use the distributive property to take out a 3 from the left-hand side so we can make the coefficient of the x^2 be 1:
3(x^2-2/3x)=2

Now, we can complete the square and simplify:
3(x-1/3)^2-1/3=2
3(x-1/3)^2=2+1/3
3(x-1/3)^2=7/3
(x-1/3)^2=7/9

Now, we square root both sides and solve for x:
x-1/3=+-sqrt(7/9)
x-1/3=+-sqrt(7)/3
x=1/3+-sqrt(7)/3
x=(1+-sqrt(7))/3

Therefore our solutions are: x=(1+sqrt(7))/3,(1-sqrt(7))/3