Radical Expressions: 10 + 2 square root symbol 4 OVER 2

jramirez23

New member
Joined
Jan 23, 2008
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29
I need help with the following problem:

10 + 2 (Right next to this 2 is a 4 inside of a "find the square root" symbol)
OVER
2

I have gotten a variety of different answers, mainly because my book states the answer is 7 and I'm switching around my order of operations to try to get seven as an answer. Can someone help me find an answer using PEMDAS?
 
Re: Radical Expressions

\(\displaystyle \frac{10 + 2\sqrt{4}}{2}\)

Start with the \(\displaystyle \sqrt{4}\). What is that equal to?
 
Re: Radical Expressions

Alright ... keep going:

\(\displaystyle \frac{10 + 2(2)}{2}\)

First you have to simplify the numerator according to PEDMAS until you arrive at ONE numerical value. Then you can divide it by 2.
 
Re: Radical Expressions

I understand the problem now. When you are solving a fraction type problem and using PEMDAS, you always have to simplify the numerator or denominator first. Am I correct?

This is an example of a mistake I made:

14 + 2
OVER
7

Is equal to

2 + 2.

This cannot be done the way shown above because you have to add the 14 and the 2 together first.
 
Re: Radical Expressions

Exactly :)

Unless you do that to EACH term in your numerator:

Example:

\(\displaystyle \frac{10 + 4}{2} = \frac{14}{2} = 7\)

\(\displaystyle \frac{10 + 4}{2} = \frac{10}{2} + \frac{4}{2} = 5 + 2 = 7\)
 
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