In the first week back of semester 2, we relearned how to do radicals! Radicals are made up of 3 parts, the index (n), the radicand (x), the radical symbol (√) and sometimes the coefficient .
Explanation for each part:
Index:
- Shows you how many times you need to multiply the same number to get the radicand
- Has to be a Natural number.
- If there is no number in the index assume it is represented by an invisible 2.
Radicand:
- The radicand is the number inside the radical symbol. It’s the value for which you’re finding the root.
Radical:
- The radical symbol represents the root operation.
Coefficient:
- A numerical factor that multiplies the entire radical expression.
- It should be applied after the root
So now that we have a basic understanding of the parts of a radical lets try an example.
In this equation, the coefficient is 5, the index is 3 (a cube root), and the radicand is 27. It’s asking, “What number, when multiplied 3 time , gives you 27”
Well we know that 9×3=27 and 3×3=9 this mean the cube root of 27 is
That leaves us with this 5×3 and we simply just multiply the coefficient with the root number to get our answer of 15, well wasn’t that simple?