The roots of a quadratic equation are found using the quadratic formula. The quadratic formula is [math]x = \frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}[/math]. The quadratic equation must be in the form [math]y=ax^2 +bx +c[/math] or [math]f(x)=ax^2 +bx +c[/math] to use the quadratic formula. The real number roots of a quadratic are where the quadratic intersects the [math]x[/math]-axis.