Sunday, June 17, 2018

radicals - Reducing square root fractions without calculator




I am trying to figure out how to reduce simple square root fractions without a calculator. In my lecturer's notes, for instance, he reduces 1/2 by multiplying with 4/2. Following is his example and another example of him doing this:



Reducing square root fraction



How does he know how to do this?
I am allowed to bring notes for my exam, is there some practical table for the most common square root fractions I could bring?
Or is there some rule for reducing I can use?



Really hope you can help me out here, thanks!


Answer




That is generally called "rationalizing the denominator". [tex]\sqrt{a}\times\sqrt{a}= a[/tex] so multiplying both numerator and denominator of a fraction with a square root in the middle moves the square root to the numerator. 1222=22



More generally, if you have something of the form a+bc in the denominator multiply both numerator and denominator by its "conjugate" abc. Since (a+b)(ab)=a2b2 that will also get rid of the square root in the denominator: 12+32232233=23249(2)=23214


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