Rationalize the denominator and simplify: (sqrt(2) + sqrt(3))/(sqrt(6))

1 answer

To rationalize the denominator of the expression \(\frac{\sqrt{2} + \sqrt{3}}{\sqrt{6}}\), we can multiply the numerator and the denominator by \(\sqrt{6}\). This helps eliminate the square root from the denominator.

Let's perform this step:

\[ \frac{\sqrt{2} + \sqrt{3}}{\sqrt{6}} \cdot \frac{\sqrt{6}}{\sqrt{6}} = \frac{(\sqrt{2} + \sqrt{3})\sqrt{6}}{6} \]

Now we simplify the numerator:

  1. Distribute \(\sqrt{6}\) in the numerator:

\[ (\sqrt{2} + \sqrt{3})\sqrt{6} = \sqrt{2} \cdot \sqrt{6} + \sqrt{3} \cdot \sqrt{6} = \sqrt{12} + \sqrt{18} \]

  1. We can simplify \(\sqrt{12}\) and \(\sqrt{18}\):

\[ \sqrt{12} = \sqrt{4 \cdot 3} = \sqrt{4} \cdot \sqrt{3} = 2\sqrt{3} \] \[ \sqrt{18} = \sqrt{9 \cdot 2} = \sqrt{9} \cdot \sqrt{2} = 3\sqrt{2} \]

  1. Substituting these back into the numerator:

\[ \sqrt{12} + \sqrt{18} = 2\sqrt{3} + 3\sqrt{2} \]

  1. Now we can go back to our expression:

\[ \frac{2\sqrt{3} + 3\sqrt{2}}{6} \]

  1. We can separate the terms:

\[ \frac{2\sqrt{3}}{6} + \frac{3\sqrt{2}}{6} = \frac{\sqrt{3}}{3} + \frac{\sqrt{2}}{2} \]

Thus, the final simplified expression is:

\[ \boxed{\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3} + \frac{\sqrt{2}}{2}} \]