This week I have learnt of a new term: radical. I chose to make a blog post about radicals because it’s the first new thing I have learnt in the year which will probably show up again.  A radical is an operation which includes a coefficient, index, root, and radicand.

For example,

In this radical, the 2 is the coefficient, which means multiply. The 3 is the index, which tells us what kind of root we’re looking for (in this case, cube). The 8 is the radicand, which is the number that you need to find the root of.

To solve the radical, you first find the cube root of 8 by thinking of how you can reach 8 through multiplying the same number by itself three times. Then, you look at the coefficient and multiply.

2*2*2=8

(2)2=4

It should be noted that when it appears as if there is no coefficient or index, the default value of the coefficient is 1, and the index’s is 2 (square).