Question 852166: (sqrt-5a+6)= -a
I saw someone ask this question not too long ago, but most of the answers given didn't provide much sense or help. Any help would be great thanks!
Found 2 solutions by Fombitz, josh_jordan:
Answer by Fombitz(32388)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Is it just the square root of -5a (sqrt(-5a)) or is it the square root of the whole thing (sqrt(-5a+6)) or is it something else??
Please repost.
Answer by josh_jordan(263)  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! 
In order to solve for a, the first thing you want to do is square both sides of the equation. Doing this will get rid of the square root on the left side of the equation. When you square both sides, you will get:
 ----->
You will notice you have a quadratic equation, so we can rewrite it in standard form of ax^2 + bx + c = 0. To do this, move all of the terms from the left of the equal sign to the right. First, move -5a by ADDING 5a to both sides. This gives us:
 ----->
Next, subtract 6 from both sides:
 ----->
Now we have our equation in quadratic form. To solve for a, we can either factor, complete the square, or use the quadratic formula. In this case, the fastest method is factoring. We need to determine what factors of -6 multiply together to give us -6 and add together to give us 5. 6 and -1 work, because 6 x -1 = -6, and 6 - 1 = 5. Now we will set this in factor form:
(a - 1)(a + 6) = 0
Setting each of these terms to zero will give us 2 possible values of a:
a - 1 = 0 -----> a = 1
a + 6 = 0 -----> a = -6
Now, because we are dealing with an unknown value inside of a square root, we must test each of our possible values by plugging them in our original equation. Let's try 1 first:
 ----->
 ----->
 ----->
1 does not equal -1, therefore 1 is not a value of a. Now, let's test -6:
 ----->
 ----->
 ----->
6 does equal 6, so -6 is the only value of a that satisfies the equation. So, a = -6
|
|
|
