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Calculus Made Easy
But there is another way out of this difficulty. The equation must be true for all values of ; therefore it must be true for such values of as will cause and to become zero, that is for and for respectively. If we make , we get , so that ; and if we make , we get , so that . Replacing the and of the partial fractions by these new values, we find them to become and ; and the thing is done.
As a farther example, let us take the fraction . The denominator becomes zero when is given the value ; hence is a factor of it, and obviously then the other factor will be ; and this can again be decomposed into . So we may write the fraction thus:
,
making three partial factors.
Proceeding as before, we find
Now, if we make , we get:
; that is, .
If , we get:
; whence .