Solution - Simplifying square roots

Simplify :  sqrt(378) 

Factor 378 into its prime factors
           378 = 2 • 3³ • 7 

To simplify a square root, we extract factors which are squares, i.e., factors that are raised to an even exponent.

Factors which will be extracted are :
           9 = 3² 

Factors which will remain inside the root are :
           42 = 2 • 3 • 7 

To complete the simplification we take the squre root of the factors which are to be extracted. We do this by dividing their exponents by 2 :
           3 = 3 

The simplified SQRT looks like this:
         3 • sqrt (42)  

Simplified Root :