Eli5:How does a square root of something work?Like square root of two, square root of 3 etc.

Question

I know it like “this multiplyed by itself has to equal 2” but does that mean when simplyfied or what?

In: Mathematics

Answer 1

That’s it, we defined it that way.

To square something means to multiply it by itself. But if we have the result (the square of something) of that and we want to go back? Well we need to find the “root of that square.” We called it that, nothing more, nothing less.