Recent content by gohabsgo

Thanks again BloodyFrozen for helping me see the light!

Thanks Mark! I realize now that prime factorization was involved in that step. But now I'm struggling to grasp the latter part. How 29/2 = 24 X 21/2 EDIT: I do understand it now, as I totally missed what I was supposed to do. Simplifying squareroot of 512. I just don't get why the above...

Mark, The bold problem is the problem from the beginning. It's a factor of a larger quadratic-like problem. The other factor I was able to easily solve for when set to 0, but this one is confusing me regarding the exponents. I don't know what to do, or why the author took those steps to achieve...

Ok guys and gals, I'm getting stumped, again, on the following small problem. Hopefully I've written everything out with clarity to explain why I'm confused. y2/3 - 8 = 0 y2/3 = 8 (y2/3)3/2 = 83/2 I'm getting confused after these steps. My book gives the following: y=(23)3/2 ...

Thanks Mark and Eumyang! I can't believe I forgot about that! I sometimes forget such small concepts when learning new ways to work equations. :blushing:

The embarrassing thing about this is that I'm not understanding how 1 = -x3 is equivalent to the x3 = -1. Because I can't use the first equation in the Multiplication Property of Zero. I eventually have to take the cubed root of -1, yielding -1. If I take the cubed root of 1, I get 1. To be...

I don't want to keep making threads when I come across some puzzling algebra concepts or problems, so I'll just use this thread as a reference point in the future when this may happen. I'm having trouble understanding the following: 1/x3 = -1 The author of my text says to cross multiply and...

Oh wow Mark44, thanks. So all I had to do was distribute 3 through (x2 -6x +9) and combine like-terms? I think where I became confused was with the lone 3. I didn't think to keep x2 -6x +9 in brackets to thereafter distribute 3. It's all so clear now and makes perfect sense. Thanks again for the...

Sorry to ask help on such an easy problem. I'm self teaching, but for some reason I'm getting stuck on a step. Can anyone explain to me what to do once I reach the form below, prior to the answer? 1) 15(x-3)3 + 60x4(x-3)2 + 5(x-3) I get this far, as shown below. After this I'm...

Thanks for the advice and helping out. I actually looked into the matter and found a few sources that help explain how to easily do certain math functions in the head without using paper or a calculator, so i'll definitely work towards that goal as a supplement. Your pyramid analogy is spot on...

Well said chiro and thanks for your response. You're definitely right about the social setting. I would prefer that over solitary learning, but unfortunately I cannot partake in any of those settings due to my current situation. I definitely see your response as inspiration and will use it as...

I'm a recent History degree graduate with about a year or two to spare before I enter law school. I'm still very young, being fresh out of the university, but find I have nothing really to do with my time. (A current situation has forced me to spend more time helping out family members, barring...