Roots are nice, but we prefer dealing with regular numbers as much as possible. So, for example, instead of √4 we prefer dealing with 2. What about roots that aren't equal to an integer, like √20? Still, we can write 20 as 4⋅5 and then use known properties to write √(4⋅5) as √4⋅√5, which is 2√5\. We *simplified* √20.
License: CC BY-NC-SA by Khan Academy