Which of the following is a monomial?
12c, c² - 16, c² + c + 6, c³ + 4c² - 12c + 7

Solution:

12c is a mononmial as it has one term.

To understand what a monomial is we have to define what a polynomial is. A function p is a polynomial:

p(x) = \(a_{n}x^{n} + a_{n-1}x^{n-1} + a_{n-2}x^{n-2}+.........+ a_{1}x^{} + a_{0}\)

Where n is a non-negative integer and the numbers \(a_{0}, a_{1}, a_{2},....., a_{n}\) are real constants (called the coefficients of the polynomial).

All polynomials have domain (\(- \infty, \infty\)),\(a_{n} \neq\) 0 and n > 0, then n is called the degree of the polynomial. Amongst the alternatives, only 12c has only one term and its degree is 1. The rest of the alternatives comprise more than one term (including the constant).

Therefore 12c is a monomial.