How do you simplify sqrt(50) - sqrt(18)?

1 Answer
Jun 11, 2018

2sqrt2

Explanation:

The key realization here is that we can leverage the radical property

sqrt(ab)=sqrtasqrtb

Thus, we can rewrite color(blue)(sqrt50)-color(red)(sqrt18) as

color(blue)(sqrt(25*2))-color(red)(sqrt(9*2))

which simplifies to

5sqrt2-3sqrt2

Factoring out a sqrt2, we get

sqrt2(5-3)

Which simplifies to

2sqrt2

Hope this helps!