Question

25a^2-20a+4

Answer 1

I don't know what you are supposed to do with that but it is a trinomial square.

Answer 2

perfect square on the left
perfect square on the right
you take the square root and you shake it all around
put -'s and that's what it's all about

Answer 3

25a^2-20a+4

Right away, this is obviously a quadratic of the form ax^2+bx+c. You can use the quadratic formula to solve this if you don't want to bother factoring or completing the square. By the way, that formula if you don't know it is:
\[x= \frac{ -b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac}} { 2a }\]
A bit scary looking if you aren't familiar with it, but you just plug in the values. Let's change your variable a to x for the sake of this explanation: 25x^2-20x+4
Here, a=25, b= -20, and c=4.
\[x=\frac{-(-20) \pm \sqrt{(-20)^2-4(25)(4)}}{2(25)}\]
You can simplify that easily enough.

x=(20 +/- sqrt(400-400))/50
x=(20 +/- sqrt(0))/50
x=20/50
x=2/5

Your answer is a=2/5. There is only one real solution to this particular quadratic. (I don't know if you're at the level yet, but it's because the discriminant [the value under the square root in the quadratic formula] is 0. If it were greater than 0, there would be two reals; less than 0, two complex.)

Answer 4

I think op is just factoring... in this case

Answer 5

it's just well people just post the problem and I'm sure there's something else besides it...like is it a factoring problem, solving problem, or maybe something else in mind?

Answer 6

Lol, I always miss the perfect squares. That method works great when you can remember it.