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Write expressions in equivalent forms to solve problems Videos 5 videos

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Simplifying Rational Expressions 1396 Views


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Description:

Rational expressions are too complex... it's about time someone simplified them.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

Simplifying Rational Expressions, a la Shmoop.

00:07

Sam is beginning his college career, and has just joined the fraternity Alpha Delta Nerda.

00:14

School policy says that no physical hazing is allowed...

00:17

...so Alpha Delta Nerda does its own kind of hazing...

00:20

...and makes the guys solve math problems to figure out what

00:23

their "special number" will be for the rest of the year.

00:28

Sam gets an anonymous letter under his door that says,

00:31

Simplify 36 minus 3p all over 4p minus 48.

00:37

To start, let's take a look at the numerator to see if we can factor out anything.

00:41

We see that 3 is the greatest common factor of 36 and 3p,

00:45

3 goes into 36 twelve times and 3 goes into 3 one time...

00:50

...so 36 minus 3p becomes 3 times 12 minus p.

00:55

We can see that in the denominator the greatest common factor is 4.

00:59

4 goes into 4 one time and goes into 48 twelve times...

01:03

...so we can factor out the 4 to get 4 times p minus 12.

01:07

12 minus p is the same as p minus 12... when multiplied by a negative.

01:13

So we can pull out a negative 1 from the top...

01:18

to get negative 3 times p minus 12, over 4 times p minus 12.

01:27

The top and bottom of the expression have common factors of p minus 12,

01:32

so we can just cancel these out.

01:33

And we're left with negative three-fourths!

01:37

That's it! Sam's special number is negative three-fourths!

01:40

He has so got this college thing in the bag.

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