 Note that if the constant term in the original third equation had been anything other than –7, the values ("a, b") = (1, 1) that satisfied the first two equations in the parameters would not have satisfied the third one ("a"–8"b" = constant), so there would exist no "a, b" satisfying all three equations in the parameters, and therefore the third original equation would be independent of the first two.The method of equating coefficients is often used when dealing with complex numbers.For example, to divide the complex number "a+bi" by the complex number "c+di", we postulate that the ratio equals the complex number "e+fi", and we wish to find the values of the parameters "e" and "f" for which this is true.