Math Question - Square Root

[yankeeinlouisiana]

Could someone explain to my son how to do square root(s)?

[bufffbison]

1. here

http://www.purplemath.com/


search square roots on this site, and it will give him all the info he wants... i use this site for my college algebra classes.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Or this one

Here is a page specifically for computing square roots longhand....

http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/52610.html

[TaleWgnDg]

3. No! Are you trying to tell me that roots grow square? Is this . . .

some kind of genetically altered thingie? This is what you want to teach your child? heh.




.

[yankeeinlouisiana]

4. Thanks Guys!

Those sites really helped, a lot!!

:-)

[_NorCal_D_]

5. I'll see if I can help,

since I'm a math club nerd though unfortunately I'm not that good at explaining things.

For a beginner, factor trees are the way to go. Here's how:

Say for example you have the square root of 12. To simplify this you can use the factor tree method where you break the number into smaller factors.

In other words 12 = 4 * 3.

Now take a look at these smaller numbers. 3 cannot be broken down into any other factors, but 4 can be broken into 2 * 2.

Now take a look at whatever the root is (typically a square root but it can be a cube root, fourth root etc). If the root is two ( a square root) then pick two numbers that are the same and 'combine' them into one. If the root were 3 you would pick a group of three numbers that are the same, if the root were 4 you would pick a group of four and so on. In this case the root is 2 so you would choose a pair which in this case happens to be the number 2. Now you can take this number out of the root and make it a coefficient of whatever is left in the root (in this case 3 remains in the root).

So the solution is the square root of 12 = 3 * 4 = 3 * 2 * 2 = 2*(root 3)

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Other Examples:

The square root of 3 is the square root of 3 because 3 cannot be factored down any more.

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The square root of 100 is 10 * 10, and since this is a pair with a root of two the the answer is 10

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The square root of 8 is 2 * 4 = 2 * 2 * 2. The root is two so take a pair out as a coefficient and leave the remaining 2 under the root sign resulting in the answer 2*(root 2)

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Hopefully these help. B-)

[yankeeinlouisiana]

6. Yes, that did help,

my son anyhow. I'm still a little lost but he's the one taking the test!

Thanks!

:-)