# Math book says -2/squareroot(2) = -squareroot(2). How did it determine this?

• Nov 8th 2012, 05:27 PM
fogownz
Math book says -2/squareroot(2) = -squareroot(2). How did it determine this? (solved)
Basically, it's all in the title. I'm sorry if this is obvious. I'm taking pre-calc but am largely teaching myself algebra along the way as I was a slacker in high school and only learned enough to pass quizzes.

Also, I've seen people post nice looking pictures of their problems. Can someone point me in the right direction to a site or program that will help me make my problems look nicer.
• Nov 8th 2012, 06:00 PM
Prove It
Re: Math book says -2/squareroot(2) = -squareroot(2). How did it determine this?
\displaystyle \begin{align*} -\frac{2}{\sqrt{2}} &= -\frac{2\sqrt{2}}{\sqrt{2}\sqrt{2}} \\ &= -\frac{2\sqrt{2}}{2} \\ &= -\sqrt{2} \end{align*}

A more intuitive way is to think that if you multiply a square root by itself, you get the base, so if you divide the base by its square root, you should get the square root.
• Nov 8th 2012, 06:11 PM
fogownz
Re: Math book says -2/squareroot(2) = -squareroot(2). How did it determine this?
Thank you, that makes a lot of sense.