SOLUTION: I hope someone can help me. I am lost. I am to reduce the rational expression to the lowest terms. And assume that the variables represent only numbers which the denominators are n

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Question 383501: I hope someone can help me. I am lost. I am to reduce the rational expression to the lowest terms. And assume that the variables represent only numbers which the denominators are nonzero. I do not undertand please to step by step.
a^2-b^2/a-b
Thank you so much!
Answer by Theo(13342) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
problem is:

(a^2 - b^2)/(a-b)

(a^2 - b^2) can be factored to be (a-b) * (a+b)

your expression becomes:

((a-b) * (a+b)) / (a-b)

The (a-b) in the numerator and denominator cancel out and you are left with:

1 * (a+b) / 1 = (a+b)

you had to know that (a^2 - b^2) is equivalent to (a+b) * (a-b).

when you take (a+b) and multiply it by (a-b), you get:

a^2 + ab - ab - b^2 which becomes a^2 - b^2 because the +ab and -ab cancel out.