Solving an Equation Using a Table

In order to solve an equation using a table, first press and enter the left side of the equation for and the right side of the equation for . This can be any type of equation (linear, quadratic, polynomial, exponential) and the procedure is unchanged. For the equation , the screen should appear as shown below:

Now press 2nd, then press GRAPH. Exactly what is seen will depend on the Table Settings (TBLSET). On the calculator image below, the settings were TBLStart=0 and =1.

Now search up and down the list with the UP and DOWN ARROWS keeping the blacken highlighted area in the X column until two identical or almost identical numbers in the and columns are found. For this example, the Y columns are equal when X = 7 since both and are equal to 11.

The X Value that makes = is the solution to the equation . Thus, the solution is X = 7.

It may be necessary to adjust the table setting to get the numbers in the Y columns to be equal, or at least almost equal.