Simplify:

Question

Simplify:

thomasfire55 · Answer

attachment

mjdennis · Answer

Oh.  That's a division sign.  Is that how it is in the problem?

thomasfire55 · Answer

yes that is the problem

mjdennis · Answer

Let's rewrite as
$$\frac{ 5 }{ \sqrt{5} }$$

mjdennis · Answer

Someone taught you how to do a more complicated one yesterday.  What should we do first?  We want to get the square root sign (the "radical") off the bottom.

thomasfire55 · Answer

square it?

mjdennis · Answer

Close.  Maybe I am just misunderstanding.

If I take the fraction 3/4, and I square it, I get 9/16.  This isn't the same as 3/4, so I changed things.  So I _don't_ want to just square it.

Is there something else I could do, to both top AND bottom, that would get rid of the radical on the bottom?

thomasfire55 · Answer

multiply it by the denominator

mjdennis · Answer

Exactly, now we have:$$\frac{ 5\sqrt{5} }{ \sqrt{5} \sqrt{5} }$$and it looks more complicated but we keep going... can we simplify top or bottom?

thomasfire55 · Answer

bottom

mjdennis · Answer

True... what does the bottom, √5√5  become?

mjdennis · Answer

Remember, " √5 " is shorthand for "the number that can be multiplied by itself to get 5"

Last step, $$\frac{ 5\sqrt{5} }{ 5 }$$

mjdennis · Answer

And you do that last step, and it ia as simple as it gets, and you are done.