Question

Factor the following trinomial.
w18 – 9w9y5 + 14y10

Answer 1

w^18 - 9w^9y^5 + 14y^10
The w^9 component of the middle term shows that the factors must contain w^9.
The y^5 component, along with the y^10 product, shows that y^5 must be present too (along with coefficients that multiply to 14 and add to 9, such as 2 and 7).
Experimenting with these conditions gives a factorization of (w^9 - 2y^5)(w^9 - 7y^5).