1. The problem is to understand and simplify surds. 2. A surd is an expression containing a root, such as a square root, that cannot be simplified to remove the root. 3. The general rule for simplifying surds is to factor the number inside the root into its prime factors and take out pairs (for square roots). 4. For example, to simplify $\sqrt{50}$: 5. Factor 50 into $25 \times 2$. 6. Since $\sqrt{25} = 5$, we can write $\sqrt{50} = \sqrt{25 \times 2} = \sqrt{25} \times \sqrt{2} = 5\sqrt{2}$. 7. This is the simplified form of the surd. 8. Remember, you can only take out factors that are perfect squares (like 4, 9, 16, 25, etc.) from under the square root. Final answer: $\sqrt{50} = 5\sqrt{2}$