solving radical expressions

Okay so a couple of weeks ago, we learned about radical expressions, which I think these are examples of. They are pretty hard, but after a while they get easier. These 3 examples we solved on Microsoft Word, and just figuring that out is harder than the actual math. On the other hand, I haven't done one of these in a few weeks, so I might not remember how to do them right. But anyways, these are radical expressions (I think).


The steps to solve this one are (stolen off Mr. Cheng):
1. resolve the negative exponent x^-2 by flipping it to the top
2. distribute the exponent 3/2 to all components
3. 3/2 means cube and then square root, so 16^(3/2) = 64, 25^(3/2) = 125
4. for the x term, power on power, so you multiply 3 with 3/2 to get 9/2
5. write x as a radical and simplify
Done! Yay!



To solve this second one, you:
1. resolve the negative exponents 81x^-2 and 49y^-4 by flipping them to the bottom and top accordingly
2. ditribute the exponent 5/2 to all components
3. 5/2 means find square root and then do to the power of 5, so 81^(5/2) = 59049, 49^(5/2) = 16807
4. for the x and y terms, power on power so you multiply 4 with 5/2 to get 20/2 and you multiply 2 by 5/2 to get 10/2
5. write x and y as radicals
6. simplify x and y
Yea! Done this one too!