Hello class,
-For the past two days we have been learning and gathering information on
Simplifying Rational Expressions. Simplifying Rational Expressions is basically finding the easiest form of the equation by simplifying it. And Rational expressions are usual in their simplest form, if it's numerator and denominator have no common polynomial factors. We've also been going over how to find the
domain and
zeros of certain rational functions.
First of all:
What is a rational #?
A rational number would be numbers such as
.4=4/10=2/5. It can be written as fractions w/ integers in the numerator & denominator.
It would
not be a number for example like:
√5/2
Rational Expressions: ---> polynomial/polynomial or polynomial over polynomial
Ex:
x^3-4x/x^3-4x^2+4x = x(x^2-4)/x(x^2-4x+4) = x(x+2)(x-2)/x(x-2)(x-2) = x+2/x-2
Basically what you do is you simplify to the lowest possible terms possible. Then once you are done simplifying you cancel out the same values (that's what the crossed out black values stand for). And then you end with your final answer which will be in the simplest form.
Domain: Is the set of all x values that work in the expression.
Ex:
x^3-4x/x^3-4x^2+4x = x(x^2-4)/x(x^2-4x+4) = x(x+2)(x-2)/x(x-2)(x-2) = x+2/x-2
Domain:
All Real #'s - {2}
Which basically means All numbers work in the place of x to make the equation set equal to 0
except for 2.
Zeros: All x value that makes the whole expression 0.
Equation:
x^3-4x/x^3-4x^2+4x = x(x^2-4)/x(x^2-4x+4) = x(x+2)(x-2)/x(x-2)(x-2) = x+2/x-2
x=-2--> zero -2+2/-2-2 = 0/-4 = 0
Basically what you're trying to find is the number you can substitute the x with to make the whole fraction equivalent to 0.
Now here are some example problems:
Equation: (x-1)(x+1)^2/(x+1)(x^2-1)
Solving:
(x-1)(x+1)(x+1)/(x+1)(x-1)(x+1) = 1
Domain: All Real #'s
So basically what happened within this equation when you simplified was that you had all of the same common value as denominators and numerators. So therefore in result they canceled each other out and you end up with a result of 1.
Equation: 3x^2/6x^2-9x
Solving:
x(3x)/3x(2x-3) = x
(3x)/
3x(2x-3) = x/2x-3
What happened with this problem was it was simplified to simplest form then once there we canceled out the 3x from both of them leaving us with an answer of
x/2x-3.
Tips:
- Be Careful with your simplifying (formulas on page 172 and 173)
- Make sure to cancel out the same integers
- Don't always suspect certain equations are simplified completely if it seems a bit harder then most problems
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4bVlDgHF5I
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Uos1ED3KHI
-If you didn't understand this concept before I hope this helped with the gist of it! For more explanation on this go to: Pages 218-219 in your book.