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||             Electronic Proceedings of the Tenth Annual             ||
||  International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics  ||
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CONTRIBUTED PAPER: 10-C3

Cubic Equations-Their Presence, Importance, and Applications 
in the Age of Technology

Robert Kreczner
Department of Mathematics and Computing
University of Wisconsin
Stevens Point, WI 54481
Email: rkreczne@uwsp.edu
Phone: (715) 346-3754
Fax: (715) 346-4260

ABSTRACT

I in this article we will attempt, with the help of modern mathematical 
technology, to revive an interest and research among teachers and students in cubic and 
higher order equations. The article, written in attractive Mathematica's notebook format, 
basically comprises two themes: It uses Mathematica 3.0 to discover simple and natural 
methods, algebra and calculus based methods, for solving exactly a cubic equation. Once 
the idea is discover, then the computation can be easily carried out by a hand, by anyone 
with standard algebra or calculus skills. In the second part we will show variety of 
different problems whose solution requires solving a non-trivial cubic equation. In that 
part we will take advantage of Mathematica to do the computation.