Chapter 7—Radicals, Radical Functions, and Rational Exponents
In mathematics a radical is a form of a root, such as a square root or a cube root. Since a radical sign changes a number, this term was borrowed by everday English to describe “radicals,” people who want to change things in dramatic ways. After algebra was developed around a thousand years ago it was found that generalizing the concept of exponents from only the positive integers to fractions gave us an alternative way to express radicals in terms of numbers with rational exponents. This gives us a large advantage in working with radicals in terms of algebraic computation.
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Copyright © 2005 by Jon Davidson. Duplication for instructional usage is permitted for students and faculty of Southern State Community College. | ||
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