The equation for this sequence is:

a_n = a_n-1 + 4

where n is the term's order in the sequence, a_n is the value of the term, and a_n-1 is the value of the term before a_n. This makes the next number:

a₆ = a₅ + 4
a₆ = 17 + 4
a₆ = 21

To add or subtract terms with exponents, both the base and the exponent must be the same. In this case they are so add the coefficients and retain the base and exponent:

-2b⁶ + 8b⁶
(-2 + 8)b⁶
6b⁶

In order to find how many additional workers are needed to staff the extra crews you first need to calculate how many workers are on a crew. There are 6 workers at the company now and that's enough to staff 3 crews so there are \( \frac{6}{3} \) = 2 workers on a crew. 6 crews are needed for the busy season which, at 2 workers per crew, means that the roofing company will need 6 x 2 = 12 total workers to staff the crews during the busy season. The company already employs 6 workers so they need to add 12 - 6 = 6 new staff for the busy season.

To add these distances, they must share the same unit so first you need to first convert the swim distance from meters (m) to kilometers (km) before adding it to the bike and run distances which are already in km. To convert 500 meters to kilometers, divide the distance by 1000 to get 0.5km then add the remaining distances:

total distance = swim + bike + run
total distance = 0.5km + 40.1km + 13.9km
total distance = 54.5km

To multiply terms with radicals, multiply the coefficients and radicands separately:

8\( \sqrt{6} \) x 2\( \sqrt{2} \)
(8 x 2)\( \sqrt{6 \times 2} \)
16\( \sqrt{12} \)

Now we need to simplify the radical:

16\( \sqrt{12} \)
16\( \sqrt{3 \times 4} \)
16\( \sqrt{3 \times 2^2} \)
(16)(2)\( \sqrt{3} \)
32\( \sqrt{3} \)