That inverse relationship between squaring numbers and square roots is important, because in plain English it means that one operation undoes the effects of the other. To factor, we must divide the original expression by the greatest common factor: To divide, we follow two steps: First, we divide the numbers: When we divide 3 by 3, we get 1. It can be canceled out like any other term. The other will work on more complicated exponential equations but can be a little messy at times. Since there is already an value in the denominator, 3 adds to that value. Could very old employee stock options still be accessible and viable? Come join us! More generally, you could say exponentials are injective, so this reasoning can be applied to bases $0