Math Is Fun Forum

trader

Member

Registered: 2008-03-03

Posts: 2

Help Me!!! Can Someone Please Help Me With This Addition Problem?

1/x + 1/x^2 + 1/x^3

These are fraction, not division, and the ^ symbol stands for "to the power of".

I know this is probably just a simple problem, but my brain shut down on me.
Thanks for any help

Daniel123

Member

Registered: 2007-05-23

Posts: 663

Re: Help Me!!! Can Someone Please Help Me With This Addition Problem?

Presumably you want to express this as a single fraction?

If so, you just follow the steps you would normally take if the denominators were numbers - you find the lowest (or in the case of algebra, the simplest) common denominator, which in this case would be x³.

Multiply the first fraction by

and the second by

to express them as fraction over x³, which gives:

Now they are over the same denominator, you can combine them into one fraction:

EDIT: FYI, there is no difference between the '/' of a fraction and of division - they are the same thing. A fraction is just a different way of expressing a division (rather than 1 ÷ x)

Last edited by Daniel123 (2008-03-03 05:20:27)

trader

Member

Registered: 2008-03-03

Posts: 2

Re: Help Me!!! Can Someone Please Help Me With This Addition Problem?

Thank you very much.