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

There isn’t really much else to it. It is just exactly that. Two of the same number multiplied together to get the square. Some square roots are rational (have an ending to the number) and some are irrational (number goes on forever). So the square root of 4 is 2. That’s a rational number. The square root of 2 is 1.41421356237309504880168872420969807856967187537…… There is no simplifying because that would change the number and therefore not be the square root.