Introduction to Radicals and Rational Expressions
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Evaluate square roots.
- Use the product rule to simplify square roots.
- Use the quotient rule to simplify square roots.
- Add and subtract square roots.
- Rationalize denominators.
- Use rational roots.
A hardware store sells 16-ft ladders and 24-ft ladders. A window is located 12 feet above the ground. A ladder needs to be purchased that will reach the window from a point on the ground 5 feet from the building. To find out the length of ladder needed, we can draw a right triangle as shown in Figure 1, and use the Pythagorean Theorem.
Figure 1
a2+b252+122169===c2c2c2
Now, we need to find out the length that, when squared, is 169, to determine which ladder to choose. In other words, we need to find a square root. In this section, we will investigate methods of finding solutions to problems such as this one.Licenses & Attributions
CC licensed content, Specific attribution
- College Algebra. Provided by: OpenStax Authored by: OpenStax College Algebra. Located at: https://cnx.org/contents/9b08c294-057f-4201-9f48-5d6ad992740d@3.278:1/Preface. License: CC BY: Attribution.