Constant term

In mathematics, a constant term (sometimes referred to as a free term) is a term in an algebraic expression that does not contain any variables and therefore is constant. For example, in the quadratic polynomial, :x^2 + 2x + 3,\ The number 3 is a constant term.

After like terms are combined, an algebraic expression will have at most one constant term. Thus, it is common to speak of the quadratic polynomial :ax^2+bx+c,\ where x is the variable, as having a constant term of c. If the constant term is 0, then it will conventionally be omitted when the quadratic is written out.

Any polynomial written in standard form has a unique constant term, which can be considered a coefficient of x^0. In particular, the constant term will always be the lowest degree term of the polynomial. This also applies to multivariate polynomials. For example, the polynomial :x^2+2xy+y^2-2x+2y-4\ has a constant term of −4, which can be considered to be the coefficient of x^0y^0, where the variables are eliminated by being exponentiated to 0 (any non-zero number exponentiated to 0 becomes 1). For any polynomial, the constant term can be obtained by substituting in 0 instead of each variable; thus, eliminating each variable. The concept of exponentiation to 0 can be applied to power series and other types of series, for example in this power series: :a_0 + a_1 x + a_2 x^2 + a_3 x^3 + \cdots, a_0 is the constant term.