Rationalizing the denominator

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Taught by mrbrianmclogan
  • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
6298 views | 1 rating
Part of video series
Meets NCTM Standards:
Lesson Summary:

In this lesson, the instructor explains how to simplify expressions by rationalizing the denominator. They demonstrate how to get rid of a radical to make it easier to work with, using the example of 4 divided by the square root of 3. They show that you can multiply the radical with itself to remove it and provide multiple ways of expressing the simplified answer.

Lesson Description:

Here I show how to simplify an expression.

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Questions answered by this video:
  • How do you rationalize the denominator of a fraction?
  • What does it mean to rationalize the denominator?
  • How do you get the square root out of the denominator?
  • How do you simplify 4/(square root of 3)?
  • Why isn't 4/radical(3) simplified?
  • What is an irrational number?
  • What is a radical?
  • What can you multiply a fraction by to get rid of the square root in the denominator without changing the fraction?
  • Staff Review

    • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
    This lesson does a good job of showing how to eliminate a radical from the denominator of a fraction. This is a very useful skill and is explained very well in this lesson.