Degree
When using the term "quadratic polynomial", authors sometimes mean "having degree exactly 2", and sometimes "having degree at most 2". If the degree is less than 2, this may be called a "degenerate case". Usually the context will establish which of the two is meant.
Sometimes the word "order" is used with the meaning of "degree", e.g. a second-order polynomial.
Read more about this topic: Quadratic Polynomial
Famous quotes containing the word degree:
“Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“A certain degree of miserey [sic] seems inseparable from a high degree of populousness.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“The world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men who look young, act young and everlastingly harp on the fact that they are young, but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution that would be excessive in their grandfathers, are the curse of the world. Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don’t know what they are conserving.”
—Robertson Davies (b. 1913)