The video of lesson 3.5 reviews this material.

Personal Polynomials

My proper name is JAMES and I am particularly fond of the polynomial

\(p\left(x\right)=\dfrac{83}{24}x^4-\dfrac{497}{12}x^3+\dfrac{4141}{24}x^2-\dfrac{3463}{12}x+164\).

(We know from the story of Exploding Dots that a combination of the non-negative powers of \(x\) is called a polynomial.)

It has

\(p\left(1\right)=10\) and the 10^th letter of the alphabet is J,

\(p\left(2\right)= 1\) and the 1^st letter of the alphabet is A,

\(p\left(3\right)=13\) and the 13^th letter of the alphabet is M,

\(p\left(4\right)=5\) and the 5^th letter of the alphabet is E,

\(p\left(5\right)=19\) and the 19^th letter of the alphabet is S.

Practice 1: Find your own personal polynomial!

Practice 2: What is the expression that “spells” JIM? Is the graph of lesson 1 a quadratic graph?

Comment: Go to www.globalmathproject.org/personal-polynomial/ for a really cool web app that finds—and graphs—your personal polynomial for you! (Also see more videos explaining the mathematics.)

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