Question 409982
I don't know why I've seen so many problems with Eric struggling with a quadratic...


And no, it doesn't work because the 0-property rule only applies with 0. We cannot set each variable to 54 because the other variable can alter the value. The best way is to expand the left side and obtain


{{{x^2 - x - 2 = 54}}} --> {{{x^2 - x - 56 = 0}}}. Factoring, this becomes


{{{(x - 8)(x + 7) = 0}}} --> now we can use the 0-property rule, x = 8 or x = -7 are the roots.