oh, so in a way I'm rationalizing the equation and just multiplying by the conjugate? except it's backwards, because the radical is moved to the bottom.
http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/users/exner/ncsa/quad/
There's another way of writing the quadratic formula...but how do I derive the 2nd formula using the 1st one? I've tried for hours and I can't get it. I would really appreciate any help.