Radicals

Square Roots

• Opposite of squaring a number is taking the square root of a number.

• A number b is a square root of a if = a

Principle of Square Roots

• The principal (positive) square root is noted as:

• The negative square root is noted as:

Radicands

Radicals expression is an expression containing radical sign ().

Radicand is the expression under a radical sign.

Note: that if the radicand of a square root is negative number, the radical
NOT a real number, they are called imaginary numbers
Example:
=7
=5
=4
=2
Perfect Squares

• Square roots of Perfect square radicands simplify to rational

numbers.

• Square roots of numbers that are not perfect squares (like 7,10
etc) are irrational numbers
Perfect Square Roots

• Radicands might also contain variables and powers of variables.

Example:
=
=
Cube Root

The cube root of a real number of a

= b only if = a

Note: a is not restricted to non negative numbers for cubes

nth Roots

Other roots can found as well. The nth root of a defined as

= b only if = a

If “n” is odd, the root will be a real number

If “n” is even, the root is not a real number when a is negative

Simply the following

√ 64 𝑥
2
2
𝑦
4 8 𝑥 𝑦

√
9
3 27 𝑎 3𝑎 3

2
6 𝑏
𝑏
 Is everything
Feelclear?
free to make this an open discussion for
questions or clarifications before
proceeding.
Properties of Radicals
If two or more radicals are multiplied with the same index,
you can take the radical once and multiply the numbers
inside the radicals.  

√ 𝑎 ∙ √ 𝑏 = √ 𝑎𝑏
𝑛 𝑛 𝑛
Examples

√ 3 ∙ √ 5= √ 1 5
√ 𝑥 ∙ √ 𝑥= x
3

√3 ∙ √9
3 3

√𝑥
4 3
∙ √𝑥
4 8
Adding &
S ubracting
Radicals
Sum and
Differences
Rules in the previous section allowed us to split radicals that had a
radicand which was a product or quotient.

W e cannot NOT split sums and differences

√ 𝑎+ √ 𝑏≠ √ 𝑎 +𝑏
√ 𝑎− √ 𝑏≠ √ 𝑎 −𝑏
Like Radicals

• These are term with the same variables raised to the same power.
• They can be combined through addition and subtraction
• Similarly, we can work with the concept of “like“ radicals to combine radicals
with the same radicand.
• Like radicals are radicals with the same index and the same radicand like
radicals can also combined with addition or subraction by using distributive
property.
Example

√ 5+3 √ 5=4 √ 5
4 √ 11+ 3 √ 11=7 √ 11
1 2 √ 3 − 6 √ 3=6 √ 3
1 0 √ 2− 8 √ 2=2 √ 2
Simplify

1 2 √ 13+3 √ 1 3
1 2 √ 10 − 3 √ 10
√ 8 +3 √ 2
√ 20 − √ 5
Rationalizing the Denominator
• This process involves multiplying the quotient by a form of
1 that will eliminate the radical in the denominator

Conjugates

• M any rational quotients have sum or difference of terms in

denominator, rather than a single radical.
• In that case, we need to multiply by the conjugate of the numerator or
denominator (which ever one we are rationalizing)
• The conjugate uses the same terms, but the opposite operation (+ or -)
Example

8 3 √5 − 7 √𝑏
√2 √6 √𝑏
3 √7 3− √ 6 √2−3 √ 3
√3 √5 √3
Example

8 3 √5 2
√2+ √5 √6+√ 7 √𝑥 − √ 𝑦
3 √7 3+ √6 4 √ 2+3
√3+√ 2 √5+ √ 2 3 √ 2+ √ 3
Solving Equations Containing
Radicals
Extraneous Solution

• Power Rule (text only talks about squaring, but applies to other power, as
well)
• If the both sides of an equation are raised to the same power solutions of
the new equation contain all the solutions of the original equation, but
might also contain additional solutions.
• A proposed solution of the new equation that is NOT a solution of the

original equation is an Extraneous Solution

Example

√ 𝑥+3=6
4 √ 3 𝑥 −36=0
3 √ 𝑥+2=10
2 √ 𝑥 −5
−5=1
3
T HANK YOU FOR
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