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Addition and Subtraction Are The Hardest Things You
Addition and Subtraction Are The Hardest Things You
with regular fractions, you'll have to convert to common denominators. Everything you hated about adding
fractions, you're going to hate worse with rational expressions. But stick with me; you can get through
this!
Let's refresh by looking at an example with regular fractions:
To find the common denominator, I first need to find the least common multiple (LCM) of the three
denominators. (For old folks like me, whenever you see "LCM", think "LCD", or "lowest common
denominator". In this context, they're pretty much the same thing.) There are at least a couple
ways of doing this. You could use the "listing" method, where you list the multiples of the three
denominators, until you find a number that is in all three lists, like this:
5: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55,...
25: 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200,...
10: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100,...
The first multiple to occur in all three lists is
Another method you could use for finding the common denominator is the factor method. It works
by finding the prime factorization of each denominator, and then using a chart to find the factors
needed for the common denominator. It looks like this:
In either case, the common denominator will be 50. To convert each fraction to the common
denominator, you multiply each denominator by what it needs in order to turn it into " 50". For
instance, in the 2/5, the denominator needs to be multiplied by 10, since 105 = 50. To keep
things fair, you multiply the top by 10 as well. This is because 10/10 = 1, and multiplying things
by 1 doesn't actually change them. So you get:
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My common denominator will be 2x2. To convert the "2/x" to the common denominator, I will
need to multiply by 2x/2x, since the denominator already has one copy of x but needs a 2 and
another x:
3/x2, I will multiply by 2/2; and for the 1/2x, I will multiply by x/x. This gives me:
This expression cannot be further simplified. The x's cannot cancel off, and the 2 cannot cancel into the 6.
Why not? Because you can only cancel factors, not terms. You cannot reach inside the " 5x + 6" factor
and rip off parts of it to cancel with the denominator. Don't try!