Questions tagged [discriminant]
Discriminant of a polynomial $\;P\left(x\right) = a_{0} + a_{1}x + a_{2}x^{2} + \dots + a_{n}x^{n} \neq 0\,$ is defined as \begin{align} \Delta &= a_{n}^{2n-2}\prod_{ i < j } \big( r_i - r_j \big)^{2} = \left(-1\right)^{n\left(n-1\right)/2} a_{n}^{2n-2}\prod_{ i \neq j } \big( r_i - r_j \big) \end{align} where $\,r_1,\dots,r_n\,$ are roots of $P\left(x\right)$ (counting multiplicity)