ABSTRACT
You have likely seen the square root function x often represented as x1 2/ (raising x to the 1 2/ power), the cube root function x3 as x1 3/ (raising x to the 1 3/ power), and so on. The notation highlights the idea that the algebraic properties of exponents extend to roots. Similar to x x x x1 1 1 1 2= =+ , we can write x x x x1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2/ / / ( / )= =( )+ . Further, x2 3/ can be interpreted as either taking the cube root of x and squaring the result or squaring x and taking the cube root of the result: x x x2 3 1 3 2 2 1 3/ / /( ) ( )= = .
