How do you rationalize the denominator and simplify sqrt(5/10)?

1 Answer
Apr 18, 2016

sqrt2/2

Explanation:

First, we can simplify what's in the big root sign:
sqrt(5/10)=sqrt(1/2)
And we can split the big root sign into two smaller ones:
=sqrt1/sqrt2
=1/sqrt2
Now we do something unexpected, and put another term into the equation.
=1/sqrt2*sqrt2/sqrt2
We can do this because sqrt2/sqrt2 is just 1, and anything times 1 is itself. Moreover we do this because the question asks us to rationalise the denominator, asking to remove any root signs.
=sqrt2/(sqrt2*sqrt2)
=sqrt2/2