simplify the following radical: 7 divided by the square root of 3

Question

I'm familiar with radicals so I do know how to solve them, but when I put this in the calculator I get a different answer than I had originally had, so maybe please explain how you got to the final answer?

Answer 1

7 divided by square root of 3

7/sqr3 = about 7/1.732 = about 4.04

7sqr3/3 = (7/3)sqr3 = 7/3(1.732) = about 4.04

go with 4, rounded off to nearest integer, or even rounded off to nearest one decimal place.

7/sqr3 = 4.0

work it a couple different ways, and when both come up with same solution, you're very confident you got it right. IF different solutions, carefully rework it both ways, and you occasionally find a simple mistake somewhere.

Answer 2

The instructions tell you to simplify the radical expression, not to compute an approximate numerical value for it. This is not a problem for your calculator. To simplify the expression, you need to rationalize the denominator:

7/√3 = 7/√3 · √3/√3 = 7√3/(√3·√3) = (7√3)/3