3.2 CHAPTER 3. SURDS
Simplest Surd Form EMBL
In most cases, when working with surds, answers are given in simplest surd form. For example,
√
50 =
√
25 × 2
=
√
25 ×
√
2
= 5
√
2
5
√
2 is the simplest surd formof√
50.
Example 2: Simplest surd form
QUESTIONRewrite√
18 in the simplest surd form:SOLUTIONStep 1 : Convert the number 18 into a product of it’s prime factors√
18 =√
2 × 9
=
√
2 ×
√
32
Step 2 : Square root all squarednumbers:= 3
√
2
Example 3: Simplest surd form