How do you simplify #5sqrt80-12sqrt5#?

1 Answer
Aug 14, 2016

#8sqrt(5)#

Explanation:

#sqrt(80) = sqrt(4*4*5)# Notice that there are two 4s in there, so, since it is a square root we can write that same thing as #4sqrt(5)# so the equation now becomes:
#5*(4sqrt(5))-12sqrt(5)#
#5*4=20# so
#20sqrt(5)-12sqrt(5)# From here we can treat #sqrt(5)# as #x# like: #20x-12x=8x# so,
#20sqrt(5)-12sqrt(5)=8sqrt(5)#