Explain to me like I’m 5, how to determine the square root of a random positive number. And I don’t mean common sense like 16=4, I need to understand the logic.
In: 6
I’m going to explain like you’re 11 because 5 year olds don’t need square roots.
The square toot of any number is what you have to times by itself (like 6 x 6 or 27×27) to get your “square root of number”
What do you have to times by itself to get 25? 5. So the square root of 25 is 5.
Just look at these times tables by themselves:
1×1 = 1
2×2 = 4
3×3 = 9
4×4 = 16
5×5 = 25
6×6 = 36
7×7 = 49
Etc. Just look at it backwards and that’s your square root. The quare rott of 36 is 6.
It gets funny when you need the square root of something that doesn’t fit nicely. The square root of 5 is going to be between 2 and 3 because 2×2 is 4 and 3×3 is 9, and 5 is in between. 5 is closer to 4 than 9, so you can guestimate something closer to 2 like 2.2 (instead of guessing some long like 2.7 or even 2.5) as the square root. To check, you times it by itself and see if you need to increase or decrease your guess. 2.2x 2.2 is 2.84 (calculator is fine), so guess 2.3 (2.3×2.3=5.29) which is too high. This means the square root of 5 is between 2.2 and 2.3. keep playing a shrinking game of money in the middle with it untill you’re happy with your accuracy. A lot of square roots are numbers that don’t really end.
Latest Answers