Professor Dave Explains

#27: Solving Algebraic Inequalities

Professor Dave here, let’s talk about INEQUALITIES.

Algebra is all about equations. One side equals the other side, and we move things
around until we can solve for a variable. But there is another type of construct in algebra
that we will need to use, and it is related to the equation. It is called the inequality.

Instead of an equation that equates two terms, telling us that they are equal, an
inequality tells us how two terms are not equal, but rather that one is either greater
than the other or less than the other.

We can manipulate and solve inequalities exactly the same way that we manipulate
equations, with one or two tiny additional rules, so let’s take a look at these now.

First let’s examine something simple, like x is greater than three (x > 3). Unlike a simple
equation, where X has precisely one value, X has many values, and any value for X that
satisfies the inequality is a solution for X. Four could work, or ten, or a billion, or
3.00001. Any number imaginable that is bigger than three is a solution to this inequality,
and this can be represented on a number line using an open circle, implying that three is
not part of the solution. Anything less than or equal to three, like zero, or negative three,
or 2.999, or three itself, will not be a solution.

We will see inequalities set up like some of the equations we’ve seen as well. How
about x plus two is less than seven (x + 2 < 7). As you might expect, all we do is subtract
two from both sides, which gives us x is less than five (x < 5), so any value less than
five is a solution, while five or above is not. We will also see these symbols, which mean
greater than or equal to, and less than or equal to. These work the same way as the
other symbols except that they include the specific value shown rather than excluding it.

If we have three x plus four is greater than or equal to sixteen (3x + 4 ≥ 16), we subtract
four from both sides, then divide by three, and we get x is greater than or equal to four.
Now on the number line, we represent this with a closed circle, meaning that it is filled in
rather than empty, to represent that the number four is included in this solution.

So, everything here works the same way it does with equations, but there is one
difference
we need to point out. If we are multiplying or dividing by a negative number, we need to
reverse the direction of the inequality symbol.

For example, if negative x is greater than six (-x > 6), we would either multiply or divide
both sides by negative one to get x, but if we do that, we have to switch the greater than
to a less than. x is less than negative six (x < 6), to see why this is the case, let’s test this
solution. Take the first version and plug in negative ten. The negative version of
negative ten, or the opposite of negative ten, is ten, and that is indeed greater than six.

Now with our revised version, negative ten is also less than negative six, so we can see
that this flipped version is indeed the correct counterpart.

Rationalizing. One way of rationalizing this is by looking at a number line. First let’s
remember that negative numbers closer to zero are larger than negative numbers
farther away from zero, so although it may for a moment seem like negative ten is
bigger than negative five, it’s actually the other way around.

Inversion. Then we must understand that when we multiply and divide these values by
positive numbers, we are just stretching and shrinking the line as it is. But if we multiply
or divide by a negative number, we are inverting the sign for every value, which makes it
look like the mirror image of the number line. To compensate for this, it makes sense to
flip the whole thing over, which is essentially what is achieved by flipping the sign of the
inequality.

Verifying. We can verify this by using whole numbers. One is less than two, but if we
multiply by negative one, we would get negative one is less than negative two, which is
not true. The only way this remains accurate is by flipping the symbol to get negative
one is greater than negative two. Other than this little rule, which can sometimes be
tricky to remember, solving simple inequalities like this is no different than solving
simple equations, so let’s check comprehension.

Checking Comprehension:

1) X-4 > 3
2) 3- x > 17
 3) 3x + 2 < 20
4) 2x + 9 < 4x + 3

https://youtu.be/uBxs7cSgOes?si=SLJOz7VkACyqFNvV

#28: Square Roots, Cube Roots, and Other Roots

It’s Professor Dave, let’s learn about SQUARE ROOTS.

We’ve learned how to solve simple algebraic equations, we just look at what is
happening to the variable we want to solve for, and we do the inverse of that operation
to both sides.
If we have x plus two (x+2), we subtract two.
If we have three x (3x), we divide by three.
What if we have x squared equals nine? (x2 = 9)
What is the inverse of squaring something?

That would be taking the square root. When we take the square root of x squared, we
get x, because squaring x is what would give us x squared. On the other side, the square
root of nine is equal to three, because three squared, or three times three, gives us nine.
So, taking the square root of something is like asking what number times itself will give
us the number inside the square root?

We must point out something very important here. Negative three is also a valid answer
for the square root of nine, because negative three times negative three also equals
nine. Remember that a negative number times a negative number is positive, so both of
these values work for the square root of nine. That means that the square root of nine is
equal to positive three or negative three, which we sometimes label this way, with both
the plus and minus sign next to the three, and we refer to this as plus or minus three.

Any square root will do this, so there are always two answers when we take a square
root. Since negative three squared equals nine, we should also note that the square root
of negative nine is not negative three.

In fact, there is no real solution to this term, so we can’t take the square root of negative
numbers the way we take the square root of positive numbers. If we were to try to do so,
we would get an imaginary answer, which is something we will investigate later in the
series. For now, let’s just say that only positive numbers can have their square root
taken.

It’s very easy to get the square root of perfect squares. The square root of four is plus or
minus two. Continuing down the list, nine, sixteen, twenty-five, thirty-six, all give very tidy
answers when we take the square root. We should make some effort to memorize the
first ten or even twenty perfect squares, because they will come in handy later. But the
numbers in between these perfect squares also give a square root, it just won’t be an
integer.

Some of these roots give a decimal value that goes on forever, meaning they are
irrational. We will talk more about this concept later, but for now let’s acknowledge that
this is an interesting result, because it means that there are real numbers that can’t be
expressed as fractions, no matter how big we make the denominator. We should also
note that radical expressions, as we often call them, can sometimes be simplified.

Simplifying Radical Expressions. Take something like root eight. Eight is not a perfect
square, so we can’t get a neat and tidy answer when we take its square root. But, we can
change eight into four times two. The reason we would want to do this is that root four
times two is the same as root four times root two, and root four does work out nice and
tidy, since it’s equal to plus or minus two.

So, root eight can be simplified to become plus or minus two root two. We could say the
same for root twenty-seven. Twenty-seven is nine times three, and root nine is plus or
minus three, so we get plus or minus three root three. Just remember to look for any
factors that are perfect squares in order to get these expressions to their simplest form.
Are there other roots we can take besides the square root?

Other Types of Roots. Certainly, we can take the cube root. This is the opposite of
cubing something, or raising it to the third power. If x cubed is twenty-seven, what is x?
We will now have to take the cube root of both sides. This is like saying, what number
raised to the third power will give the number inside this root. In this case, the answer is
three, because three times three times three equals twenty-seven. Also notice that in
this case, this is the only answer.

Negative three doesn’t work, because negative three times negative three times
negative three equals negative twenty-seven. So negative three is the cube root of
negative twenty-seven. In this way, cube roots differ from square roots, first because
you can take the cube root of a negative number, and second because any number will
only have one unique cube root, rather than two. If we take the fourth root of something,
we see that the rules are similar to square roots in that we can’t take the fourth root of a
negative number, because multiplying a negative value four times gives us a positive
value.

Taking the fifth root sees us going back to rules like for the cube root. We alternate back
and forth depending on whether the root is odd or even. Odd roots have one real
solution and even roots have two real solutions. For now, we just have to accept this,
but later we will get a more satisfying explanation.

Roots as Fractional Exponents. We now come to one of the most important things to
understand about roots, we have to realize that they represent fractional exponents.
Taking the square root is the same as raising something to the one-half power. This is
because, if the square root of something times itself should equal the original value, like
how root x times root x equals x, then it must be the case that we can express this as x
to the one-half times x to the one-half equals x to the one, since one half plus one half
equals one, according to the rules of exponents.

This is a notational choice, and it works for any exponent. Taking the cube root is the
same as raising something to the one third power. We can also combine two different
operations into one fraction. Raising something to the two thirds power means squaring
it and taking the cube root, so eight to the two thirds power equals four, which we can
verify by either squaring first and then taking the cube root, or taking the cube root and
then squaring.

In this way, x to the A over B power simply means to multiply x by itself A times and then
take the B root. When we combine this with what we know about operations with terms
raised to exponents, we can do seemingly tricky things. Take this expression here, the
square root of x times the cube root of x divided by the fourth root of x.

First let’s change this to x to the one-half times x to the one third divided by x to the one
fourth. Since x to the A times x to the B equals x to the A plus B, we simply add these
exponents together on the top.

To do so, we need a common denominator for these fractions, so we change them to

three sixths and two sixths, and add them together to get five sixths. Then if dividing by
the x to the one fourth we subtract, which means we need the lowest common
denominator, which will be twelve. So, ten twelfths minus three twelfths equals seven
twelfths. And there you have the simplified version of the original expression, x to the
seven-twelfths power.
Let’s check comprehension.

1) √ 16
2) √ 50
3) √ 300
4) √ 243

https://youtu.be/7vomY6g-f3Q?si=wMrZGEsGqLNVUB98

#29: Simplifying Expressions with Roots and Exponents

Professor Dave again, let’s practice simplifying expressions.

We just learned what roots and radical expressions are, as well as the basic rules for
how to manipulate them, so now it’s time to practice simplifying expressions containing
radicals and exponents. Let’s go through a few examples and highlight the strategies
we must use in each case. First let’s try something simple, six x cubed y, quantity
squared.

When we say the word quantity this way, it’s to distinguish between a whole term or set
of terms undergoing an operation rather than just the last thing mentioned. If I had
simply said six x cubed y squared, this is what that language would imply, with the
squared applying only to the y, but by inserting the word quantity, we can communicate
the presence of these parentheses, and the fact that all of this is being raised to this
exponent.
The first thing we must understand about exponents that operate on parenthetical
terms is that while they do not distribute across sums or differences, they do distribute
across products and quotients. In other words, A plus B quantity squared is not equal to
A squared plus B squared. For example, five squared is twenty-five, but if we change five
to three plus two and try to distribute the exponent, three squared plus two squared is
nine plus four, or thirteen, so we clearly weren’t allowed to do what we did. To evaluate
the square of a sum, we need another technique that we will learn later. But A times B
quantity squared is indeed equal to A squared times B squared. This is easy to prove,
because AB squared is AB times AB, and since multiplication is associative, we can
shuffle these around to get AABB, or A squared B squared. So we can look at this term
and rewrite it as six squared times X cubed squared times Y squared.

Now we continue to simplify. Six squared is six times six, or thirty-six. For X cubed
squared, let’s remember that X to the A to the B is equal to X to the A times B, meaning
that we multiply the two exponents together. That means X to the three times two,
which equals six, or X to the sixth. And Y squared stays as it is. So we are left with thirty-
six X to the sixth Y squared. Let’s try a trickier one. We have four X cubed Y times this
fraction in parentheses, three X Y squared over two X cubed, all of which is squared. The
first thing we want to do is distribute this exponent over everything in the fraction. If the
whole term is squared, then each individual term can be squared. Three X Y squared
becomes nine X squared Y to the fourth, and two X cubed becomes four X to the sixth.
Now we can combine like terms for this term on the left and the numerator of this
fraction. Remember that when multiplying a fraction by a number, the number only
multiplies the numerator, and this is no different.

Four times nine is thirty-six, X cubed times X squared is X to the fifth, and Y times Y to
the fourth is Y to the fifth. Now we can simplify a bit further, since thirty-six divided by
four is nine, and X to the fifth divided by X to the sixth is X to the negative one, since five
minus six is negative one. This is the same as leaving x in the denominator, because x
to the negative one is the same as one over x. So we are left with nine Y to the fifth over
x. How about this one, x to the sixth over 64 all raised to the negative two thirds power.
There are a few ways to approach this, but let’s first address the fact that the exponent
is negative. If this were a single term, we could put one over the term and then make the
exponent positive, the way we said that X to the negative one is one over x. But since we
already have a fraction, let’s just flip it over. If we turn this upside down, we can change
the exponent to positive two thirds.

Now, as we recall, raising something to the two thirds power is the same as squaring it
and taking the cube root in some order. Since it’s easier to work with small numbers,
let’s take the cube root first, making sure to do it for both top and bottom. The cube root
of sixty-four is four. The cube root of x to the sixth, which is like x to the sixth to the one
third, is equal to x to the six times one third, which is two, so we get x squared. That
takes care of the denominator of the exponent, so now we just square the top and
bottom. That leaves us with sixteen over X to the fourth, which can’t be simplified
further.

Let’s try another, ten a to the two x plus y power divided by two a to the x plus y power.
Here we can see that ten over two can be done separately, which gives us five. Now to
deal with this part of it, again we can just use the rule for dividing some base raised to
two different exponents; we just subtract them.

So A to the two X plus Y over A to the X plus Y gives us A to the two X plus Y minus
the quantity X plus Y. This only works because A is the base in both terms, if the bases
were different, we couldn’t do this. Then remember that we have to subtract the entire
exponent in the denominator, so we need parentheses to do this. The negative sign will
then distribute, leaving us with A to the two X plus Y minus X minus Y. Combining like
terms, Y minus Y goes away, and two X minus X leaves us with simply X.

So the final answer is five A to the X. How about this one. Three X squared root thirty-
two Y squared minus four Y root eighteen X to the fourth. First with the roots, we can’t
take out thirty two, but if we make it sixteen times two, we can take out a four and a Y.
We can combine like terms to get twelve X squared Y root two. Again with the other
term, eighteen doesn’t work, but nine times two means we can take out a three and an X
squared, and combining like terms gives us twelve X squared Y root two.

These terms are the same, and anything minus itself is zero, so this whole expression
actually simplifies to zero. I think by this point we get the picture. Even when
expressions seem very complicated, we just go one step at a time, simplifying
according to the rules we know for manipulating roots and exponents.

https://youtu.be/OAIctPYiMrw?si=duIC8mnwVpvMRWTX
30: Solving Algebraic Equations with Roots and
Exponents

It’s Professor Dave, let’s do some more algebra.

We just learned about all kinds of roots. Square roots, cube roots, and more. We learned
that they can also be represented with fractional exponents, where X to the one half and
the square root of X mean exactly the same thing. So we are now ready to use our
understanding of roots and exponents to solve algebraic equations that are a little
trickier than the ones we looked at previously.

Let’s start with a simple one. The square root of (X plus nine) equals five. Notice here
that the square root symbol extends over this entire term, so it’s not just nine more than
the square root of X, it’s the quantity X plus nine, and then the square root of that whole
thing. This means we have to be very specific regarding the order in which we do things
to try to get X by itself.

We can’t subtract nine from both sides and expect to get the square root of X, because
the nine is inside the square root, so we would just get the square root of X plus nine,
minus nine, and that just makes things worse. Instead, we have to get rid of the square
root first. Well we know that the opposite of taking the square root of something would
be squaring it. So we can square both sides to get rid of this square root. That gives us
X plus nine equals twenty-five.

To really prove that squaring a square root gets rid of the root, let’s remember that
taking the square root is the same as raising to the one half power, so we can rewrite
this equation like this. On the left, we have this term to the one half power to the second
power.

We can recall from our rules of manipulating exponents that X to the A to the B equals X
to the A times B, and here, A times B, or one half times two, equals one. So the one half
and the two essentially negate one another to just leave the term by itself. Now things
look much simpler. X plus nine equals twenty-five, so we subtract nine from both sides
and we get X equals sixteen.

How about something a little trickier. The quantity X plus two to the three halves power
equals eight. We still just go from the outside in, undoing every operation that acts on
the variable we are solving for, one at a time.

First we have to get rid of the exponent. How do we get rid of the three halves? The
fastest way to do it would be to raise both sides to the two thirds power. If we raise this
term that is to the three halves to the two thirds power, we are raising it to the three
halves times two thirds power, and if we do this, everything cancels, and we just get one
as the exponent.
Another way to do it would be to square both sides and then take the cube root, but why
do two steps when you can do one? Now on the right, we have eight to the two thirds.
This we can just evaluate by taking the cube root, which is two, and then squaring to get
four. Now we are left with X plus two equals four, so we just subtract two from both
sides to get X equals two.

When we have something like X squared plus five equals forty-one, this is also quite
easy, we just subtract five, and then take the square root. But remember, when we take
the square root of something we get two answers, in this case positive six and negative
six, so we have to keep in mind that these types of equations have two solutions.

Let’s do one more. Three root (X minus one) equals root (X plus one). Certainly we must
get rid of these square roots, so let’s square both sides. Don’t forget that on the left we
square the three and the radical term, so we get nine times the quantity X minus one,
and on the right we just lose the radical and get X plus one.

Then we distribute the nine to get nine X minus nine. Subtract X, add nine, divide by
eight to get ten over eight, simplify by dividing the top and bottom by two, and X will
equal five fourths. So as you can see, once you know all the rules for how to manipulate
roots and exponents, it’s just a matter of applying them strategically to undo all the
operations that are acting on the variable you want to solve for.

https://youtu.be/EnJuHTq0ni0?si=R2wPffQ8K51DSndy