Science Fact Finder | Mathematics, Numbers, and Computers - When Did The Concept Of Square Roof Originate?

When did the concept of square roof originate?

A square root is a number that, when multiplied by itself, equals a certain number called a "square." For instance, 6 is the square root of 36. Thus, 6 x 6 = 36. For most numbers, however, the square root is not an integer (whole number). The square root of 2, for example, is 1.4142135.... This type of number, which never ends and does not have repeating sequences, is called an "irrational number." Irrational numbers are significant because there are far more of them than there are "rational numbers." Rational numbers are those that can be expressed as a ratio ofa/b,where both "a" and "b" are both nonzero whole numbers.

The concept of square root has been in existence for many thousands of years. While no one knows exactly how it was discovered, early mathematicians used several different methods to determine square roots. Clay tablets from Babylon (an...

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