Browse · MATH
Printjmc
algebra senior
Problem
Find all values of that satisfy the equation .
Solution
We first isolate the square root, so we can then square both sides to get rid of it. Subtracting 4 from both sides gives . Squaring both sides gives , or . Factoring gives , so or . Because we squared the equation, we must check if our solutions are extraneous. For , the equation reads , which is true. If , we have , which is not true, so is extraneous. Therefore, our only solution is .
Final answer
x=5