How to solve (x-4) ^2

So basically it's x-4 to the power of two. Since you don't have a number for x, you would simply bring the power of 2 to both, demonstrating the distributive property. x^2-4^2.

Simplify that to x^2 - 16.

(If further simplification is necessary, x times x - 16 should do the trick!)

The answer is x^2-8x+16