Question

what do unknown factor and quotient represent

Answer 1

In mathematics, a mystery is a constitutive element of a mathematical expression. The unknown can describe a property verified by some kind of unknown value, usually numbers. In the case of an equation, is a value such that, by substituting the unknown, equality is verified; in this case is called solución.1 The question also is used in other cases, such an inequality. A problem may have one or more unknowns, but each is expressed in the form of one single symbol. Simple use cases are the rule of three and the percentage calculation.

The unknown was historically used in the modeling of algebraic problems related to polynomials. This particular case is called theory of equations; its use has expanded in particular the progress of the analysis where functions other than polynomial appear; the unknown can so designate, for example, a table or a function .In a modern sense, an unknown variable is associated with a mathematical function whose numerical value can be obtained by arithmetic cálculo.2

The term first appears unknown in the seventeenth century under the pen of Fermat, 3 but the concept is much older. The Greek mathematician Diophantus, in the third century, who introduced the arithme albeit less operationally prefigures modern "unknown". The vocabulary and certain fundamental principles of solving equations, such as balancing, are largely mathematician Al-Khwarizmi and his disciples.