Question

Ok so I'm suppose to do this

Square root of 6
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Square root of 2

I know when you divide a radical over radical and they have the same what ever it's called (the same number outside of the radical that determines if it's cube root squared root etc.) you can just divide the number and put it in the radical right?

So I can just do square root 3 because 6/2 is three

the only problem is that my text book says to put it into exponential form first so i get

6^(1/2)
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2^(1/2)

now i divide and i get three and when exponenet over exponent you subtrac them so 1/2 - 1/2 = 0?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
3^0 = 1
so i don't get it please assist me.

Answer 1

sqrt6/sqrt2 = 6^(1/2)/2*(1/2) = 3^1/2
= sqrt3

I don't understand why they wanted you to put in into exponent form first. You could have written sqrt6/sqrt2 as
sqrt3*sqrt2/sqrt2 and cancelled out the sqrt2