INTRODUCTION In 1901 the Swiss historian of mathematics and Arabist Heinrich Suter (1848-1922) published in the journal Bibliotheca

mathematica the German translation of an Arabic mathematical treatise composed by (as the author himself wrote) Master Abu Zakariya Muhammad ibn Abd Allah known under the name of el-Hassar, in which we find the earliest known description of an iterative process for extracting square roots yielding closer and closer approximations to the real value. Although this ingenious yet basically simple way to calculate square roots completely different from our method today was taught later by the outstanding Italian mathematicians Luca Pacioli (ca. 1445-1517), Hieronimo Cardano (1501 1576), Nicolo Tartaglia (1499/1500-1557), and Pietro Antonio Cataldi (1548-1626), it is largely unknown today.

DISCUSSION "Roots" (or "radicals") are the "opposite" operation of applying exponents; you can "undo" a power with a radical, and a radical can "undo" a power. For instance, if you square 2, you get 4, and if you "take the square root of 4", you get 2; if you square 3, you get 9, and if you "take the square root of 9", you get 3: Copyright Elizabeth Stapel 1999-2011 All Rights Reserved

The " " symbol is called the "radical"symbol. (Technically, just the "check mark" part of the symbol is the radical; the line across the top is called the "vinculum".) The expression " " is read as "root nine", "radical nine", or "the square root of nine". You can raise numbers to powers other than just 2; you can cube things, raise them to the fourth power, raise them to the 100th power, and so forth. In the same way, you can take the cube root of a number, the fourth root, the 100th root, and so forth. To indicate some root other than a square root,

you use the same radical symbol, but you insert a number into the radical, tucking it into the "check mark" part. For instance:

The "3" in the above is the "index" of the radical; the "64" is "the argument of the radical", also called "the radicand". Since most radicals you see are square roots, the index is not included on square roots. While " " would be technically correct, I've never seen it used. a square (second) root is written as a cube (third) root is written as a fourth root is written as a fifth root is written as: You can take any counting number, square it, and end up with a nice neat number. But the process doesn't always work going backwards. For instance, consider , the square root of three. There is no nice neat number that squares to 3, so cannot be simplified as a nice whole number. You can deal with in either of two ways: If you are doing a word problem and are trying to find, say, the rate of speed, then you would grab your calculator and find the decimal approximation of :

Then you'd round the above value to an appropriate number of decimal places and use a real-world unit or label, like "1.7 ft/sec". On the other hand, you may be solving a plain old math exercise, something with no "practical" application. Then they would almost certainly want the "exact" value, so you'd give your answer as being simply " ".

Extracting Square Roots Mentally A square is a number multiplied by itself. For example: 3 squared (3 2 ) is 3 * 3, or 9. A square root is the number that, when squared, results in a given number. For example, the square root of 9 (9) is 3. Have a spectator choose any number from 1 to 100, square it with their calculator and give you the answer. Imagine being able to figure the square root of that number in your head!

To extract square roots mentally, you must know the first 10 squares: 12 =1 22 =4 32 =9 42 =16 52 =25 62 =36 72 =49 82 =64 92 =81 102 =100

Note that 1, 4, 6 and 9 each appear twice as the last digit of the squares: 12 =1 22 =4 32 =9 42 =16 52 =25 62 =36 72 =49 82 =64 92 =81 102 =100

Also note that 1, 4, 6 and 9 each appear once below and once above 5: 12 =1 22 =4 32 =9 42 =16 52 =25 62 =36 72 =49 82 =64 92 =81 102 =100

Finally, note that the squares for 5 and 0 end in their respective numbers: 12 =1 22 =4 32 =9 42 =16 52 =25 62 =36 72 =49 82 =64 92 =81 102 =100

If youre given one of the squares youve memorized from this chart, simply give the square root youve remembered.

If youre given a number that ranges from 100 (10 2 ) to 10,000 (100 2 ), youll need to go through the following steps. First, split the number into two parts, with the rightmost two digits in one part, and the rest in the other. As an example, lets say youre given the number 1,764. You would mentally split it into 17 and 64. Next, focusing on the number to the left set, ask yourself, What is the largest square that is equal to or less than that number? In our example, the largest square that is equal to or less than 17 (the number in the left set) is 16. Recall the square root of this number, and that will be the tens digit of the answer. In our example, we found that 16 was the largest cube less than or equal to 17. Since we know that the cube root of 16 is 4 (16=4), we now know our answer is in the 40s somewhere. Now, focus on the number in the right set. In our example of 1,764, this would be the 64. Look at just the rightmost digit, and ask yourself, Which digits, from 0-9, when squared, would result in that digit? In our example of 1,764, we see that the rightmost digit is a 4. However, both 2 2 (4) and 8 2 (64) end in 4, so how do we know whether 2 or 8 is the right digit? This is where the trick of squaring numbers ending in 5 comes in handy. Using the tens digit discovered earlier, set 5 as the ones digit and square it. In our 1764 example, we know that the root is in the 40s, so we square 45, which is 2,025. Finally, ask yourself whether the given number is above or below this square of 5. This will tell you which digit belongs in the ones place of the root. In our example, 1,764 is lower than 2,025 (45 2 ), so the lower of the two choices (2, instead of 8) is correct. Finally, put the tens digit together with the ones digit, and you have the answer. In our example, we determined that 1,764 was in the 40s somewhere, and that 2 was the correct digit for the ones place, so the

answer is 42! 19. For squares that end in 5 or 0, youll known that they end in 5 or 0, respectively. Other examples: What is 3,364? Because 33 is greater than 25 (5 2 ), and less than 36 (6 2 ), we know the answer is in the 50s. Because 64 ends in 4, we know that the answer must end in 2 or 8. Because 55 2 =3,025, and 3,364 is greater, 3,364=58. Other examples: What is 5,625? Because 56 is greater than 49 (7 2 ), and less than 64 (8 2 ), we know the answer is in the 70s. Because 25 ends in 5, we know that the answer must end in 5. So, 5,625=75. Other examples: What is 4,761? Because 47 is greater than 36 (6 2 ), and less than 49 (7 2 ), we know the answer is in the 60s. Because 61 ends in 1, we know that the answer must end in 1 or 9. Because 65 2 =4,225, and 4,761 is greater, 4,761=69.

ADVENTURE TIME
1. 81 =

2. 121 =

3. 361 =

4. 100 =

5. 400 = 6. 25 =

7. 4 =

8. 49 =

9. 289 =

10. 64 =

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ONLY Simplifying Square-Root Terms To simplify a square root, you "take out" anything that is a "perfect square"; that is, you take out front anything that has two copies of the same factor:

Note that the value of the simplified radical is positive. While either of +2 and 2 might have been squared to get 4, "the square root of four" is defined to be only the positive option, +2. When you solve the equation x2 = 4, you are trying to find all possible values that might have been squared to get 4. But when you are just simplifying the expression , the ONLY answer is "2"; this positive result is called the "principal" root. (Other roots, such as 2, can be defined using graduate-school topics like "complex analysis" and "branch functions", but you won't need that for years, if ever.) Sometimes the argument of a radical is not a perfect square, but it may "contain" a square amongst its factors. To simplify, you need to factor the argument and "take out" anything that is a square; you find anything you've got a pair of inside the radical, and you move it out front. To do this, you use the fact that you can switch between the multiplication of roots and the root of a multiplication. In other words, radicals can be manipulated similarly to powers:

Simplify There are various ways I can approach this simplification. One would be by factoring and then taking two different square roots:

The square root of 144 is 12.

You probably already knew that 122 = 144, so obviously the square root of 144 must be 12. But my steps above show how you can switch back and forth between the different formats (multiplication inside one radical, versus multiplication of two radicals) to help in the simplification process.

Simplify Neither of 24 and 6 is a square, but what happens if I multiply them inside one radical?

Simplify

This answer is pronounced as "five, root three". It is proper form to put the radical at the end of the expression. Not only is " " non-standard, it is very hard to read, especially when hand-written. And write neatly, because " " is not the same as " ". You don't have to factor the radicand all the way down to prime numbers when simplifying. As soon as you see a pair of factors or a perfect square, you've gone far enough.

Simplify Since 72 factors as 236, and since 36 is a perfect square, then:

Since there had been only one copy of the factor 2 in the factorization 266, that left-over 2 couldn't come out of the radical and had to be left behind.

Simplify