Solution - Simplifying square roots

Simplify :  sqrt(976) 

Factor 976 into its prime factors
           976 = 2⁴ • 61 

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 :
           16 = 2⁴ 

Factors which will remain inside the root are :
           61 = 61 

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 :
           4 = 2² 

The simplified SQRT looks like this:
         4 • sqrt (61)  

Simplified Root :