ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Tartaglia's formula

Hey kiddo! Have you ever heard of something called "Tartaglia's formula"? Don't worry if you haven't, I'm here to explain it to you in a way you can easily understand.

Tartaglia's formula is a way to find the solution of a kind of math problem called a quadratic equation. Now, a quadratic equation is like a puzzle that looks like this: ax² + bx + c = 0. I know it looks scary, but just bear with me!

So, to solve this puzzle, we can use Tartaglia's formula, which looks like this:

x = [-b ± √(b² - 4ac)] / 2a

Wow, that looks complicated! But let me break it down for you. First of all, the "x" in the formula is the solution to this puzzle we're trying to find. The "a", "b", and "c" are just numbers that we plug into the equation.

Now, the formula itself is a little trickier. The big letter '√' is just a symbol for something called a square root, which you can think of as the opposite of squaring a number. For example, the square root of 4 is 2, because 2² = 4.

So, the first part of the formula is [-b ± √(b² - 4ac)]. This just means that we need to do some calculations with the numbers "a", "b", and "c". We take the number "b", multiply it by itself (that's what the "²" means), then subtract 4 times "a" times "c". Then we take the square root of the whole thing.

The second part of the formula is just 2 times "a".

So, when we put it all together, we get the solution to our quadratic equation! It may seem complicated at first, but with practice, you'll get the hang of it. And who knows? Maybe someday you'll even come up with your own formula that helps solve tricky math problems!