Maths... Is this valid?

[The Tan Stallion]

2 hours ago, HZapperz said:

Correct me if im wrong but those seem to be 2 different answers. With the first one being equal to .788 and the second one being equal 2.36

of course both the answers will be same....you are probably entering it wrong in the calculator

[wasab]

Rationalize the radical. Multiply the faction by an identity(whatever faction that equals 1) made of the same radical you are rationalizing for. If the denominator is bionimial, multiply both the numerator and deminator by its conjugate.

[wasab]

20 hours ago, Enderman said:

The answer is the same.

Making the denominator a rational number just makes it look better.

I've never seen a teacher take marks off because of something like that, since both are the correct answer.

Not if rationalizing the denominator is part of the material being taught then they expect you to rationalize it because teachers are testing that. It is like the teacher expect you to simplify 7x+5x as 12x instead leaving it as two terms.

 

if you know that simplifying isn’t a material  being taught then not simplifying or rationalizing is fine. I do this for my calculus exam. Rather than simplifying craploads of sins and cosines raise to a power, divided by more craps raised to 1/3 power and what nots, I just leave the answer as it is. 

 

In trigonometry however, rationalizing the answer IS required, at least in the high school I had been to.

[2FA]

16 minutes ago, wasab said:

Not if rationalizing the denominator is part of the material being taught then they expect you to rationalize it because teachers are testing that. It is like the teacher expect you to simplify 7x+5x as 12x instead leaving it as two terms.

 

if you know that simplifying isn’t a material  being taught then not simplifying or rationalizing is fine. I do this for my calculus exam. Rather than simplifying craploads of sins and cosines raise to a power, divided by more craps raised to 1/3 power and what nots, I just leave the answer as it is. 

 

In trigonometry however, rationalizing the answer IS required, at least in the high school I had been to.

This has also been my experience with those areas of math.