Partial fraction decomposition not working

347 Views Asked by At

While trying to do partial fraction decomposition on $$\frac{x^4 +1}{x(x^2+1)^2}$$ I first equated it to $$\frac{A}{x}+\frac{Bx+1}{x^2+1}+\frac{C}{(x^2+1)^2}$$

On solving this, by adding the fractions, you get $$\frac{x^2(A+B)+A+x}{x^3+x}+\frac{C}{x^4+2x^2+1}$$ so obviously $A$ has to be equal to $1$ for the numerator's constant to be 1, and similarly, going forward, $B=-1$ and $C$ is -2, but when you write it out, you get an extra $x^5+2x^2+x$ in the numerator.

As far as I know, the method works everywhere. Can someone tell me where I've messed up here?

1

There are 1 best solutions below

3
On BEST ANSWER

If you don't use the standard form, then you will be getting nowhere in most cases… like right now :(

The most general case is the following one [screenshot of the section "Over the reals---General Result" in this link]:

General case for partial fractions