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SUPPLEMENTAL SHEET #5 TOPIC: CONJUGATE SURDS, RATIONALISATION OF SURDS Conjugate surds are specially related surds such as: , Their product is always a a rational number, as The idea of conjugate surds is important for rationalizing the denominator. Find the conjugate surds of: 1. 2. 3. Solutions: 1. 2. 3. The idea of rationalizing the denominator is to simplify a fraction such that there are no surds in the denominator. This is done by multiplying the numerator and denominator by the conjugate surd of the denominator. Rationalizing the denominator is an important idea as it simplifies algebraic manipulation, for example, in combining two fractions involving surds. Simplify the following fractions: this does not change the = magnitude of the expression as it is essentially multiplying by 1 = = = -------------------------------- = = = -------------------------------------- = = Taken from: http://library.thinkquest.org/C0110248/algebra/islsurdlaw.htm