SOLUTION: Hi, I am new to this site, can someone help me. I have not had math in years and I am terrible at it. My question is: Find the quadratic equations that fits the following set of d

Question 460108: Hi, I am new to this site, can someone help me. I have not had math in years and I am terrible at it.
My question is: Find the quadratic equations that fits the following set of data points. ((-1,5),(-4,59),(-3,37))
Thank you
Answer by jim_thompson5910(35256) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Since we're forcing a parabola to go through these three points, this means that when we plug in each 'x' into the general formula , we'll get 'y'. So essentially, we're plugging in corresponding values of 'x' and 'y' and forming equations, which we'll use to solve for 'a', 'b', and 'c'.

So for instance, if we plug in x=-1, then we'll get the output of y=-5. This means that

which simplifies to

Do the same with the second point to get the second equation

Finally, do the same with the third point to get the third equation

----------------------------------------------

After doing all that, we have the system

which translates into this augmented matrix

Row reduce this matrix (see this image for full steps on how to do that) to get

Note: alternatively you can use a calculator to do the row reduction.

The last column represents the values of 'a', 'b', and 'c' respectively.

So , and

So the quadratic equation that goes through the three given points is

As a check, if we plug in x = -1, then....

So plugging in x = -1 gives us y = 5, meaning that the point (-1,5) lies on the parabola. This partially verifies our answer.

Do the same with the other two points to verify this equation actually works.

Let me know if this helps.
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