How do you solve (x + 4)^{2} = 245?

1 Answer
Apr 11, 2018

There are plenty of ways to do this but I think the easiest is just to square root it. I got #x=-19.65248, 11.6525

Explanation:

The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to just square root both sides first to get ride of the square:
√(x+4)^2 = √245
Now you might not know but when you square root a square it cancels it out and keeps everything inside so the result is:
x +4 =+- 15.65247584
The next thing to do is subtract the 4 from both sides:
x=-4+-15.65247584
If you do not know +- just means you are going to get two answers which include you adding 4 and subtracting it. You have to do this every time you take the square root of something:
x=-4+15.65247584 and
x=-4-15.65247584
These come out to:
x=-19.65248 and
x=11.6525
You can check these by putting it back into the problem in the x spot as so:
((-19.65248)+4)^2=245 and
((11.6525)+4)^2=245
I checked both of these and they both come out to about 245 so they you go.