THE REAL

NUMBERS

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 The Real Numbers

The most important kinds of number that you will meet are called real numbers. Unfortunately, real numbers
are also a very difficult kind of number to define! Let’s first of all observe that not all numbers are rational numbers.

For example, suppose you have a right angled triangle where the two adjacent sides have length 1 like this:

x = hypotenuse
1

Pythagoras’s theorem tells you that the length, x say, of the hypotenuse, must satisfy the equation

x2 = 12 + 12 = 2.

So in other words,√the length x is a number whose square is equal to 2. This number x is called the square root of 2
and it is denoted 2. Long ago, the ancient Greeks realized that such a number could not be a fraction. Numbers
which are not fractions are called irrational numbers.

The example of the triangle above shows us clearly that if we want to put maths to practical use, we cannot just
use fractions — we must use a kind of number that could be a fraction or which could be an irrational number.

The right type of number to use is called a real number. As mentioned above, the real numbers are a little
difficult to define. So how do you think about them? There are two aspects to this.

Firstly, there is the question of what do real numbers look like? It is helpful to have a mental picture of real
numbers. Secondly, there is the question of how do you work with real numbers?

What do real numbers look like?

Probably the best way to think of real numbers is as decimals, where we allow infinitely many decimal places to
the right of the decimal point. Here are some examples:

1.00000000000000000 · · ·
− 0.125000000000000000000000000 · · ·
0.333333333333333333333333333 · · ·
1.414213562373095048801688724209698078569 · · ·
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419 · · ·

The first example shows that every natural number can be thought of as an infinite decimal (just whack a whole bunch
of zeroes after the decimal point!). The third example is the decimal representation of the fraction 1/3; there is an
infinite string of 3’s going on forever after the decimal point. Sometimes you’ll see this pronounced as “0.3 recurring”
and written as
0.3 = 0.3333333333333333333 · · ·
Notice that in the decimal representation of 1/3, the digits in the decimal repeat. This is also true in the decimal
representation of the fraction 1/7, which is

1/7 = 0.142857142857142857142857 · · ·

where the block of digits 142857 keeps repeating over and over. It turns out that this is always true for rational
numbers — their fractions are exactly equivalent to infinite decimals where there is a repeating block of digits.
√
The fourth and fifth examples above give a glimpse of the real numbers 2 and π respectively. These numbers
are infinite decimals, with only the first 40 or so of their digits diplayed. In these numbers, there is no pattern which
repeats itself amongst the digits.

You’ve got to be a little bit careful when thinking about these infinite decimals, for example

1.50000000000000000 · · · = 1.4999999999999999999 · · ·

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Another question you might ask is, “How the heck do you add, multiply, subtract and divide these numbers?” For
example,
1.234567891011121314 · · · × 1.101001000100001000001 · · · =?
You don’t even know what all the digits are, so how can you even multiply them together? It turns out that
everything can be made to work, but the price is that things become more complicated to explain.

How do you work with real numbers?

In practice, for this course, you will never need to know how exactly how real numbers are defined. All you need to
know are the rules√that you use to manipulate them algebraically. For example, you √ will never to know how you add
the real numbers 2 and π, but what you will need to know is that you can add 2 and π to get a new real number
√
2 + π.
You’ll also need to be able to expand brackets, for example
√ √ √
2( 2 + 1) = 2 + 2
and collect up like terms, for example
2π + (3.1)π − (1.21)π = (3.89)π.

So, you should take it as a fact that there is a set R whose elements are called real numbers. This set R contains
all of the natural numbers, all of the integers, and all of the rational numbers. In other words every natural number is a
real number, every integer is a real number, and every fraction is a real number.
√ But there are also real numbers which
are not natural numbers, integers, or fractions (for example numbers like 2 and π – the irrational real numbers).

Usually the real numbers are pictured as spread out along the real number line like this:
−4 −3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3 4

The mental picture that you should have of the real number line is that it is a continuous, with no “gaps”.
You should also take it as a fact that there are operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division for
real numbers.

So if you have two real numbers x and y, then you can add them:

x + y,

subtract them:
x − y,
multiply them:
xy,
and divide them (if y = 0):
x/y

Of course if x and y are fractions, then the result of addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, thinking of
x and y as real numbers, is just the same as the result of addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, thinking of
x and y as fractions.

To see what is meant here, consider the fractions 0.125 and 0.578. Since every fraction is a real number, you could
add them as real numbers, but the result of that addition will be exactly the same as the result of adding them as
fractions, i.e.
0.125 + 0.578 = 0.703
The operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division satisfy all of the usual rules. For example multi-
plication distributes over addition, like this:
x(y + z) = xy + xz
for all real numbers x, y and z. This property lets you expand out brackets, like this:
(x + y)(z + w) = xz + xw + yz + yw.
There are some super useful identities that you should commit to memory.

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• expanding a perfect square binomial:

(x + y)2 = x2 + 2xy + y 2

• difference of two squares:

x2 − y 2 = (x − y)(x + y).

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 Radical expressions
Square roots

Back in school, you’ll have learnt about square roots. Probably a lot of the time you’ve worked out square roots
√
by pressing the button on your calculator. Sometimes your calculator will spit out an exact value, for instance
√ √
4 = 2, and sometimes it will spit out an approximate value, for instance if you ask your calculator to find 2 it will
give you the approximate value 1.414213562373095.

When you’re trying to find a square root of a real number

√ x, you’re trying to find another positive real number
y such that y 2 = x. That real number y is denoted y = x. Sometimes there is an exact value for a square root. For
example, if you start with a number which is a perfect square, then you will always get an exact value. For example
√ √ √ √ √ √
0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, . . .

all have exact values, as do    √

1/4, 1/100, 9/49, 0.25, . . .
This is because each number that you are trying to take the square root of is a perfect square:

0 = 02 , 1 = 12 , 4 = 22 , 9 = 32 , 16 = 42 , 25 = 52 , . . .

and
1/4 = (1/2)2 , 1/100 = (1/10)2 , 9/49 = (3/7)2 , 0.25 = (0.5)2 , . . .
so you get √ √ √ √ √ √
0 = 0, 1 = 1, 4 = 2, 9 = 3, 16 = 4, 25 = 5, . . .
and    √
1/4 = 1/2, 1/100 = 1/10, 9/49 = 3/7, 0.25 = 0.5, . . .
But usually you don’t get exact values. For example, your calculator will return the√value of 1.414213562373095 when
√
you press 2, followed by . This is only an approximate value (remember that 2 is an infinite decimal). In fact,
if you square 1.414213562373095, then you get

(1.414213562373095)2 = 1.999999999999999861967979879025

which is not quite equal to 2.

There’s a couple of important things to keep in mind when thinking about square roots.

First, you don’t take the square root of a negative number. There is no real number which is the square root
of −1 for example – that would be like trying to find a real number x which satisfies the equation x2 = −1. But
whenever you square a number, the result is always positive (or zero, if you start with zero and square it).

There’s a very useful fact for taking the square root of a product: “the square root of a product is the product of
the square roots”. In symbols what this means is the following. If x and y are non-negative real numbers, then
√ √ √
xy = x y.

This formula is super useful for simplifying radical expressions.

Example
√ √ √ √ √ √
Simplify 6 8. Using the formula, 6 8 = 6 × 8 = 48. But 48 = 16 × 3 and 16 is a perfect square. So
√ √ √ √ √ √
6 8 = 16 × 3 = 16 3 = 4 3.

Caution: Here’s a common mistake that people make (now you’ve seen it, you’ll never make this same mistake,
right?) √ √ √
x+y = x+ y
Don’t
√ make
√ this√mistake! This equation is never true√if x and y√are both positive. For example, if x = y = 1 then
√
x + y = 1 + 1 = 1 + 1 = 2. But 2 is not equal to 1 + 1 = 2.

Simplifying radical expressions

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 A lot of the time you’re going to get an answer to a problem which has a sum or product of radical expressions in
it, and you’re going to need to know how to simplify it. Below are a series of examples to give you some practice with
this.

Example
√ √ √
Simplify 2 2 + 5 2 − 4 2. The important thing here is not to get put off by the square root, you could call it x
if you like to try and simplify things. Then the problem would be, simplify 2x + 5x − 4x. A good way to do this is to
take out a common factor of x like this:

2x + 5x − 4x = (2 + 5 − 4)x.

You know that√2 + 5 −√4 = 3,√so you√get 2x + 5x − 4x = 3x. This works no matter what value x is, so in particular
you find that 2 2 + 5 2 − 4 2 = 3 2.

Example
√ √
Simplify 3 2 − 8. The key here is to look at the numbers inside the square roots and see if they have any perfect
squares as factors. The number 2 is not a perfect square, but 8 factors as 8 = 4 × 2, and 4 is a perfect square (since
4 = 22 ). So  √
√ √ √ √ √ √ √ √
3 2 − 8 = 3 2 − 22 × 2 = 3 2 − 22 × 2 = 3 2 − 2 2 = 2.

Example

Another thing you’ll have to do a lot is called “rationalizing the denominator”. For example, you might be given
the real number
2
√
3
but you want to write it as the quotient of two real numbers where the denominator is rational (at the moment it is a
quotient
√ of two real numbers
√ √but the denominator is irrational). Here’s what you should do: multiply top and bottom
by 3 (i.e. multiply by 3/ 3); notice that this is the same as multiplying by 1, so the number doesn’t change.
√ √ √
2 2 3 2× 3 2 3
√ =√ ×√ =√ √ = .
3 3 3 3× 3 3
√ √ √
Notice how the denominator 3 is replaced by the rational denominator 3 × 3?

Example

Here’s another example. Rationalize the denominator in

1
√ .
1+ 2
√
This time, what you should do is multiply top and bottom by 1 − 2. The point is that in the denominator you will
have √ √ √
(1 + 2)(1 − 2) = 12 − ( 2)2 = 1 − 2 = −1
√
(remember the difference of two squares?) This will always work: if you have a denominator of m + n p, then to
√
rationalize the denominator you should multiply by m − n p.

Returning to the example,

√ √ √
1 1 1− 2 1− 2 1− 2 √
√ = √ × √ = √ = = −1 + 2.
1+ 2 1+ 2 1− 2 2
1 − ( 2) 2 −1

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 Exponent Laws
Recall that there’s a useful shorthand notation that is used when you multiply the same number by itself a bunch
of times. If x is a real number, and n is a natural number, then the real number xn is defined to be

xn = x × x × · · · × x
  
n times
n
You pronounce the symbol x as “x to the power “n”. Normally you say“x squared” instead of “x to the power of
two” and “x cubed” instead of “x to the power three”. The natural number n is referred to as the exponent.

This is a very useful notation; it is far more convenient to write x7 instead of

xxxxxxx.

For one thing, it would be easy to accidentally leave off a factor of x in the product above, or alternatively accidentally
miscount the number of factors in the product.

What happens if n = 1? In this case there is only one factor of x in the product, and so x1 = x.

Powers also make sense for integers as well. If x is a non-zero real number, then x−1 is defined to be

x−1 = 1/x.

More generally, if n is a natural number and x is a **non-zero** real number, then x−n is defined to be

x−n = 1/(xn ).

If n = 0, then x0 is defined to be x0 = 1.

Here’s an example of powers of 2:

n −4 −3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3 4 5
1 1 1 1
2n 16 8 4 2 1 2 4 8 16 32

Law 1: xm xn = xm+n
If x is a real number and m and n are natural numbers, then

xm xn = xm+n .

Example

x3 x4 = x3+4 = x7 .
You can see why the law is true in this example by multiplying out:

x3 x4 = (xxx)(xxxx)
= xxxxxxx
= x7

Example

π 2 π 4 = π 2+4 = π 6 .
Example

x4 x3 x2 = (x4+3 )x2 = x4+3+2 = x9 .

Law 2: xm /xn = xm−n

If x is a non-zero real number and m and n are natural numbers, then

xm /xn = xm−n

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Example

x4 /x3 = x4−3 = x1 = x
Example

π 3 /π 4 = π 3−4 = π −1 = 1/π.

Law 3: (xm )n = xmn

If x is a real number and m and n are natural numbers, then

(xm )n = xmn .

Example

(x2 )4 = x2×4 = x8
You can see why the law is true in this case by multiplying out:

(x2 )4 = (x2 )(x2 )(x2 )(x2 )

= x2+2+2+2

Law 3 also works if m or n is negative (provided x is non-zero). Here’s the most important case:

(x−1 )n = x−n = (xn )−1

if n is a natural number and x is non-zero. In other words

(1/x)n = 1/(xn ).

Example

(x3 )−1 = 1/x3

Example

(((x2 ))−1 )3 = x2×(−1)×3 = x−6 = 1/x6 .

Law 4: (xy)n = xn y n
If x and y are real numbers and n is a natural number, then

(xy)n = xn y n .

Example

(xy)4 = x4 y 4

Law 5: (x/y)n = xn /y n
If x is a real number, y is a non-zero real number and n is a natural number, then

(x/y)n = xn /y n .

It’s easy to see why this law must be true. Remember that x/y = xy −1 , so (x/y)n = (xy −1 )n = xn (y −1 )n by Law
1. By Law 3 (y −1 )n = (y n )−1 = 1/y n . Therefore

(x/y)n = xn (y −1 )n = xn (y n )−1 = xn /y n .

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Fractional Exponents

Powers also make sense when the exponent is a fraction. To understand this you need to start by thinking about
fractions like 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, . . .. If n is a natural number, then x1/n is defined to be the n-th root of x, i.e.
√
x1/n = n x

root of x is the unique positive real number y whose n-th power is equal to x, i.e. y n = x. This number y is
The n-th√
denoted x.
n

√
So for example if n = 2 then x1/2 = 2
x is just the usual (positive) square root of x.
√
If n = 3 then x1/3 = 3
x is the cube root of x, i.e. the unique positive real number whose cube is equal to x.
Here are some examples:
√
81/3 = 8 = 2 (since 23 = 8)
3

√
641/3 = 64 = 4 (since 43 = 64)
3


(1/8)1/3 = 3 1/8 = 1/2 (since (1/2)3 = 1/8)

If n = 4√then x1/4 is the fourth root of x, i.e. the unique positive real number whose fourth power is equal to x,
i.e. x1/4 = 4 x. Here are some examples:
√
161/4 = 16 = 2 (since 24 = 16)
4


(1/81)1/4 = 4 1/81 = 1/3 (since (1/3)4 = 1/34 = 1/81)

If n = 5 then x1/5 is (surpise) the fifth root of x, and so on for n = 6, 7, 8, . . .

There’s one subtletly that has been glossed over so far. Remember that there is no real number whose square root
is negative. There’s also no real number whose fourth root is negative, or whose sixth root is negative, or whose eighth
root is negative, etc. In other words x1/2 , x1/4 , x1/6 , x1/8 , . . . are only defined if x is non-negative, i.e. x ≥ 0. Notice
that the numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, . . . are all even.

On the other hand, cube√roots, fifth roots, seventh roots, etc do make sense for negative numbers. For example the
cube root of −8 is −2, i.e. 3 −8 = −2, since (−2)3 = −8. So x1/n is defined for all x if n is an odd natural number.

However, taking n-th roots is a somewhat tricky business, and for this reason, when you see x1/n , you should
always be careful to understand for which values of x it is defined.

So now you know about powers where the exponent is a fraction of the form 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, . . .. What about powers
where the exponent is any fraction? For example, how should you define x3/2 if x is a non-negative real number? The
answer is that you define √
x3/2 = (x3 )1/2 = x3 ,
in other words you cube x and then take the square root. This is exactly the same as first taking the square root, and
then cubing the result, i.e.
x3/2 = (x3 )1/2 = (x1/2 )3 .
For example, √
163/2 = ( !6)3 = 43 = 64,
which gives exactly the same answer as
√
163/2 = (163 )1/2 = 4096 = 64.

So in general, if x is non-negative,
xm/n = (xm )1/n = (x1/n )m .
Beware: great care needs to be exercised with fractional powers xm/n when x is negative

The Laws 1–5 for powers above also work for fractional exponents.

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