How do I reach out to Greg to ask a question about a specific problem? In the video, he used 29 as the exponent for x and y. I’m confused how he knew that the exponents weren’t different from each other. How does he know they are going to be the same? Was it just so that the factoring would be easier? How do we know it works like that every time?
Because if we add two of the same thing together (2^29), isn’t it the same as just multiplying by two?
So, 2^29 + 2^29 can be written as 2 * 2^29.
So, this would be 2^1 * 2^29, so using our exponent rules, that would be 2^(1+29) or 2^30
I think for this question its just observation, this won’t work in every situation unfortunately.