It will be assumed that any expression underneath a radical is a non-negative real number.
So, for example
 = a, a  0.
- Steps to Solving Radical Equations
-
- Rewrite the equation so that one radical containing a variable is by itself on
one side of the equation.
- Raise each side of the equation to a power equal to the index of the radical.
(The index of a radical is discussed in section 1
of this chapter.)
- Collect and combine like terms.
- If the equation still contains a term with a variable under a radicand,
repeat steps 1 through 3.
- Solve the resulting equation for the variable.
- Check all solutions in the original equation for extraneous solutions.
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