Coefficient

In mathematics, a coefficient is a multiplicative factor in some term of a polynomial, a series, or any expression. For example, in the polynomial

$${\displaystyle 7x^{2}-3xy+1.5+y,}$$

with variables ${\displaystyle x}$ and ${\displaystyle y}$, the first two terms have the coefficients 7 and −3. The third term 1.5 is the constant coefficient. In the final term, the coefficient is 1 and is not explicitly written.

In many scenarios, coefficients are numbers (as is the case for each term of the previous example), although they could be parameters of the problem—or any expression in these parameters. In such a case, one must clearly distinguish between symbols representing variables and symbols representing parameters. Following René Descartes, the variables are often denoted by x, y, ..., and the parameters by a, b, c, ..., but this is not always the case. For example, if y is considered a parameter in the above expression, then the coefficient of x would be −3y, and the constant coefficient (with respect to x) would be 1.5 + y.

When one writes

$${\displaystyle ax^{2}+bx+c,}$$

it is generally assumed that x is the only variable, and that a, b and c are parameters; thus the constant coefficient is c in this case.

Any polynomial in a single variable x can be written as

$${\displaystyle a_{k}x^{k}+\dotsb +a_{1}x^{1}+a_{0}}$$

for some nonnegative integer ${\displaystyle k}$, where ${\displaystyle a_{k},\dotsc ,a_{1},a_{0}}$ are the coefficients. This includes the possibility that some terms have coefficient 0; for example, in ${\displaystyle x^{3}-2x+1}$, the coefficient of ${\displaystyle x^{2}}$ is 0, and the term ${\displaystyle 0x^{2}}$ does not appear explicitly. For the largest ${\displaystyle i}$ such that ${\displaystyle a_{i}\neq 0}$ (if any), ${\displaystyle a_{i}}$ is called the leading coefficient of the polynomial. For example, the leading coefficient of the polynomial

$${\displaystyle 4x^{5}+x^{3}+2x^{2}}$$

is 4. This can be generalised to multivariate polynomials with respect to a monomial order, see Gröbner basis § Leading term, coefficient and monomial.

In linear algebra, a system of linear equations is frequently represented by its coefficient matrix. For example, the system of equations

$${\displaystyle {\begin{cases}2x+3y=0\\5x-4y=0\end{cases}},}$$

the associated coefficient matrix is ${\displaystyle {\begin{pmatrix}2&3\\5&-4\end{pmatrix}}.}$ Coefficient matrices are used in algorithms such as Gaussian elimination and Cramer's rule to find solutions to the system.

The leading entry (sometimes leading coefficient) of a row in a matrix is the first nonzero entry in that row. So, for example, in the matrix

$${\displaystyle {\begin{pmatrix}1&2&0&6\\0&2&9&4\\0&0&0&4\\0&0&0&0\end{pmatrix}},}$$

the leading coefficient of the first row is 1; that of the second row is 2; that of the third row is 4, while the last row does not have a leading coefficient.

Though coefficients are frequently viewed as constants in elementary algebra, they can also be viewed as variables as the context broadens. For example, the coordinates ${\displaystyle (x_{1},x_{2},\dotsc ,x_{n})}$ of a vector ${\displaystyle v}$ in a vector space with basis ${\displaystyle \lbrace e_{1},e_{2},\dotsc ,e_{n}\rbrace }$ are the coefficients of the basis vectors in the expression

$${\displaystyle v=x_{1}e_{1}+x_{2}e_{2}+\dotsb +x_{n}e_{n}.}$$

• Correlation coefficient
• Degree of a polynomial
• Monic polynomial
• Binomial coefficient

• Sabah Al-hadad and C.H. Scott (1979) College Algebra with Applications, page 42, Winthrop Publishers, Cambridge Massachusetts ISBN 0-87626-140-3 .
• Gordon Fuller, Walter L Wilson, Henry C Miller, (1982) College Algebra, 5th edition, page 24, Brooks/Cole Publishing, Monterey California ISBN 0-534-01138-1 .