Week 4 – Pre Calc 11

One thing that I learned this week in Pre Calc 11 is how to multiply radicals. Multiplying radicals is very similar to multiplying fractions, as Mrs. Burton told us you “just do it.” As long as the radicand is in the simplest form, you can multiply the like terms together. Meaning you multiply the coefficients together and the radicands together. Ex. (2\sqrt3) (3\sqrt5) = (2)(3)\sqrt(3)(5) = 6\sqrt15. Depending on the question you can also use distributive property or FOIL. Ex.  2\sqrt3 (6\sqrt3+5\sqrt3 -7\sqrt3). To FOIL an equation it is easiest to do so when all of the numbers are in their simplest form such as in the example. You can then add or subtract any like terms, meaning terms with the same radicand (= 2\sqrt3(4\sqrt3)) and then you can FOIL the equation. For this equation, you would distribute 2\sqrt3 into the rest of the equation (=(2)(4)\sqrt(3)(3)) = 8\sqrt9). Once you have distributed, you can check to see if the equation can be simplified anymore or added or subtracted anymore (=8\sqrt9 = (8)(3) = 24).

I have included an example below that shows the steps I would take to multiply a more challenging equation using radicals and distributive property.

 

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