Special Products of Binomials

Some products occur so frequently in algebra that it is advantageous to be able to recognize them by sight. This will be particularly useful when we talk about factoring.

In the following examples the special products of binomials are multiplied out using the FOIL method, and then simplified

Difference of two squares

Squaring a binomial

What you should to be able to recognize by sight are these three formulas:

You should be able to recognize these products both ways. That is, if you see the left side you should think of the right side, and if you see the right side you should think of the left side.