Divide (x^2-8x+16)/(x-4)

$\frac{x^{2} - 8 x + 16}{x - 4}$

Factor using the perfect square rule.

Rewrite $16$ as $4^{2}$ .

$\frac{x^{2} - 8 x + 4^{2}}{x - 4}$

Check that the middle term is two times the product of the numbers being squared in the first term and third term.

$8 x = 2 \cdot x \cdot 4$

Rewrite the polynomial.

$\frac{x^{2} - 2 \cdot x \cdot 4 + 4^{2}}{x - 4}$

Factor using the perfect square trinomial rule $a^{2} - 2 a b + b^{2} = {(a - b)}^{2}$ , where $a = x$ and $b = 4$ .

$\frac{{(x - 4)}^{2}}{x - 4}$

Cancel the common factor of ${(x - 4)}^{2}$ and $x - 4$ .

Factor $x - 4$ out of ${(x - 4)}^{2}$ .

$\frac{(x - 4) (x - 4)}{x - 4}$

Cancel the common factors.

Multiply by $1$ .

$\frac{(x - 4) (x - 4)}{(x - 4) \cdot 1}$

Cancel the common factor.

$\frac{(x - 4) (x - 4)}{(x - 4) \cdot 1}$

Rewrite the expression.

$\frac{x - 4}{1}$

Divide $x - 4$ by $1$ .

$x - 4$