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How do the roots of the quadratic equation $ax^2+bx+c=0$ change when $b$ and $c$ retain constant values and $a$ tends to zero? ($b\neq 0$)

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$$x_{1/2}=\frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$$

If you are looking at the limit for $a\to 0$ then the equation becomes a linear equation $bx+c=0$.

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The roots are giving (on any field of characteristic $\neq2$) by:

$$x_{1,2}=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$$

Taking this as a function of $\;a\;$ , we can apply l'Hospital's rule for one of the roots:

$$\lim_{a\to0}\frac{-b+\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}=\lim_{a\to0}-\frac{c}{\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}=-\frac cb$$

assuming, of course, $\;b\neq0\;$ .

For the other one the numerator dfoesn't vanish but the denominator does so the limit is $\;\pm\infty\;$ , depending on the sign of $\;b\;$ .

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That works for one of the roots, and it is $-\frac{c}b$. The other would tend to $\pm \infty$ depending on the sign of $b$. – Macavity 1 hour ago
    
@Macavity Thank you, your comment arrived when I was editing my answer. You are right. – Joanpemo 1 hour ago

If $|a|$ is small enough, the discriminant $b^2-4ac$ will be positive, so the equation can be considered to have two distinct roots, by keeping $a\in(-\delta,\delta)$, $a\ne0$, for some $\delta>0$.

We can assume $b>0$ (just change $x$ to $-x$ otherwise)

The roots are $$ \frac{-b-\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}, \qquad \frac{-b+\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}, $$ We see that $$ \lim_{a\to0}\frac{\sqrt{b^2-4ac}-b}{2a}= \lim_{a\to0}\frac{-4ac}{2a(\sqrt{b^2-4ac}+b)}=-\frac{c}{b} $$ whereas $$ \lim_{a\to0^+}\frac{\sqrt{b^2-4ac}+b}{2a}=-\infty \qquad \lim_{a\to0^-}\frac{\sqrt{b^2-4ac}+b}{2a}=\infty $$


In my old high school book, when discussing “parametric degree two equations” it was always said that “when $a=0$ one root becomes infinite”, which has a justification: the parametric equation was essentially a pencil of parabolas, the degenerate ones being a line counted twice (case of discriminant $0$) and the union of a line and of the improper line (case $a=0$). Of course the book didn't mention this.

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@Macavity Typo fixed before seeing your comment. Thanks, anyhow! – egreg 1 hour ago

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