SAT Math › How to find a rational number from an exponent
Solve for .
Rationalize the denominator:
The conjugate of is
.
Now multiply both the numerator and the denominator by
and you get:
Hence we get
Solve for :
If,
What does
If ,
then .
From the equation in the problem statement
Now squaring both sides we get
this is a quadratic equation which equals
and the factors of this equation are
This gives us .
However, if we plug these solutions back into the original equation, does not create an equality. Therefore,
is an extraneous solution.