Perhaps if you had followed the forum's guidelines,
https://www.freemathhelp.com/forum/threads/112086-Guidelines-Summary?p=433156&viewfull=1#post433156
you would have got prompter and better help. Did you see where it says to show your work even if you think it is wrong? Did you do that? NO! Did you see where it says to tell us where the problem came from so we have some clue as to its context? Did you do that? NO! Or perhaps you failed to read the guidelines at all.
In any case, you are asking for "free" help. The volunteers here do not work at a "job." No one pays us, certainly not you. So don't give yourself the air of the lord of the manner looking down his nose at a parlor maid whom he can sack for not showing proper deference to her betters.
I've read the rules and guidelines, but I like I said, I assumed that you as mathematicians had understood the question, if you don't then I can't know how it is that you're not understanding it. Like pka intimated, I don't have access to your minds, and you don't have access to my mind,—the problem of this world! with much hubris and impatience besides. I am just a beginner who is working from crumbs, so I don't know what your overview is in this complex world of mappings and functions; all I have is one chapter on this subject from a beginners' A-level textbook.
You asked me if I had shown my work,even if I think it is wrong (and angrily exclaimed NO!). But I disagree and think I did this as best I could by showing a "previous question" that I'd gotten correct (where it gave me
x2 + 2x = y and
x2 + 3x = 0), and where I said I was trying to apply this same method in changing the formula of
2x2 - 4x + 1 = 0 so that the left-hand side looks the same as the first equation, as per the sum I got correct, but I couldn't do this because of the positive and negative values of x don't hold out. Am I so wrong in assuming that you would intuitively know what this means without actually writing it down?
But as messy as this will look, here it is...
I want to change
2x2 - 4x + 1 = 0 to
1 - x - x2 = ??? by moving as much as I can to the right-hand like of the = sign.
2x – 4x + 1 = 0
2x – x +1 = 3x
x – x + 1 = x/2
And here I stop because of the positive and negative values of x can't get me to
1 - x - x2 on the left-hand side. Since I also assumed this method is wrong, I thought it wasn't worth writing it out in full.
You also asked me to state where the problem came from so you can see its context, and again got angry.But likewise I assumed you would know intuitively its context since it is so basic (and where it comes from seems erroneous).
But as a further a clearing up, my textbook gives only two examples before going into the questions (this is after the basics of mapping and functions).
It asks to solve x
2 - 1/x = x
3
And asks to plot two functions on a graph
y = x
2 – 1/x
y = x
3
And says the points of intersection of the two lines will solve x.
The second example says solve x
3 + 2x -3 = 0 by plotting a line for x
3 + 2x = y, and then change the left-hand side of the quadratic formula to look like the left-hand side of this formula which makes the line. So....
x
3 + 2x - 3 = 0
x
3 + 2x = 3
Since x
3 + 2x = 3, and x
3 + 2x = y, then y = 3, and then plotting of this line will run dissect through the line of x
3 + 2x = y and show the two points which solve the quadratic. After this the questions are quite easy, but then it gets to the question that I had quoted verbatim. And so, you see, all I was trying to do was change the subject of the formula for the left-hand side of the quadratic...which you see I couldn't do, and so brought me to you kind people.
When I ask this question I get a lot of confusion back, I am even more confused and have no idea how it cannot be clear. So, as ever I'm just asking what method I am supposed to use to solve
2x2 - 4x + 1 = 0 after plotting the line
1 - x - x2 = y and how I am to change the subject of the formula accordingly.
I used the word “job” rhetorically because I was asked what I am “confused about” rhetorically; and you have to admit that you are not volunteers in the broad sense of that word, you are also people who love maths and puzzles, no?
You know I can never ask questions on this forum again if you gang up to me and make me out to be the wrong one. But it's just a problem of communicating and patience.