# Ask Uncle Colin: Spotting factors | Colin

Dear Uncle Colin,

In a recent test, I stumbled across $9x^4 + \frac{1}{144x^4} + \frac{1}{2}$, which apparently factorises as $\left(3x^2 + \frac{1}{12x^2}\right)^2$. How on earth am I supposed to spot that?!

– Feeling Almost Cheated, That’s Only Reasonable

Hi, FACTOR, and thanks for your message!

I wouldn’t instinctively spot that that factorises — but I would spot that it’s a hot mess.

I’d certainly notice that $9x^4$ is a factor common to the first term and the bottom of the second, and I’d substitute $y = 9x^4$ to see if it made things better: now it’s \$y + \frac{1}{16y} +…
{"extraction_info": {"found_math": true, "script_math_tex": 0, "script_math_asciimath": 0, "math_annotations": 0, "math_alttext": 0, "mathml": 0, "mathjax_tag": 0, "mathjax_inline_tex": 1, "mathjax_display_tex": 0, "mathjax_asciimath": 0, "img_math": 0, "codecogs_latex": 0, "wp_latex": 0, "mimetex.cgi": 0, "/images/math/codecogs": 0, "mathtex.cgi": 0, "katex": 0, "math-container": 0, "wp-katex-eq": 0, "align": 0, "equation": 0, "x-ck12": 0, "texerror": 0, "math_score": 0.6547569036483765, "perplexity": 2120.1535595236132}, "config": {"markdown_headings": true, "markdown_code": true, "boilerplate_config": {"ratio_threshold": 0.18, "absolute_threshold": 10, "end_threshold": 15, "enable": true}, "remove_buttons": true, "remove_image_figures": true, "remove_link_clusters": true, "table_config": {"min_rows": 2, "min_cols": 3, "format": "plain"}, "remove_chinese": true, "remove_edit_buttons": true, "extract_latex": true}, "warc_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886104631.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20170818082911-20170818102911-00082.warc.gz"}