Cool math Prealgebra Help Lessons: Radicals - Rationalizing the Denominator

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Coolmath Prealgebra
Radicals lesson 6 - Rationalizing the Denominator (page 2 of 3) page 1
---- This prealgebra lesson explains how to rationalize the denominator.


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Here's another one:

5 / sqrt(10) = ( 5 / sqrt(10) )( sqrt(10)*sqrt(10) ) = ( 5*sqrt(10) / sqrt(100) ) = ( 5*sqrt(10) / 10 ) = sqrt(10) / 2 reduce 5/10 = 1/2

YOUR TURN:

Rationalize the denominator:

They get messier...

What if we needed to get the radical out of this denominator?

5 / ( 2 - sqrt(3) )

Same game -- we still multiply by a magic 1...

The magic 1 will be made up of this guy's conjugate.

Well now, that was helpful wasn't it?

Conjugate = same guy, different sign

So, the conjugate of

2 - sqrt(3) is 2 + sqrt(3)

Continued on the next page

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