2x^4-162 divided by 2 PLEASE SOMEONE HELP

Question

anonymous · Answer

Does it look like this? $$\frac{ 2x^4-162 }{ 2 }$$

anonymous · Answer

YES

anonymous · Answer

Okay, so I'm assuming we're trying to simplify this? So, 2/2= 1, so this will make it 1x^4 and -162/2 = -81

Can you figure out what your answer is?

anonymous · Answer

well i got on my test 2(x^4-81) and the teacher said to simplfy it more

anonymous · Answer

then i did 2(x^2-9)(x^2+9) and i dont know what to do afterwards it says to simplyfy it more

anonymous · Answer

Is it multiple choice?

anonymous · Answer

nope

anonymous · Answer

Okay, so we're going to distribute. 2 * x^2, 2*-9, etc. If you do this and add the like terms together you should get the simplified version.

whpalmer4 · Answer

The original is $$x^4-81$$ after dividing through by 2 which seems plenty simplified to me.  Maybe you were supposed to factor it?  It's of the form $$a^2-b^2$$ which factors to $$(a+b)(a-b)$$ so we can write
$$(x^2-9)(x^2+9)$$ and we can factor both of those giving
$$(x+3)(x-3)(x+3i)(x-3i)$$