Squares and Square Roots

How to Square A Number

To square a number, just multiply it by itself ...

Example: What is 3 squared?

3 Squared =

=33=9

"Squared" is often written as a little 2 like this:

This says "4 Squared equals 16"

(the little 2 says the number appears twice in multiplying)

Squares From 12 to 62
1 Squared = 12 = 1 1 =

2 Squared = 22 = 2 2 =

3 Squared = 32 = 3 3 =

4 Squared = 42 = 4 4 = 16
5 Squared = 52 = 5 5 = 25
6 Squared = 62 = 6 6 = 36

The squares are also

on the Multiplication Table:

Negative Numbers
We can also square negative numbers.

Example: What happens when we square (5) ?

Answer:

(5) (5) = 25
(because a negative times a negative gives a positive)
That was interesting!

When we square a negative number we get a positive result.

Just the same as squaring a positive number:

Square Roots
A square root goes the other way:

3 squared is 9, so a square root of 9 is 3

A square root of a number is ...

... a value that can be multiplied by itself to give the original number.
A square root of 9 is ...

... 3, because when 3 is multiplied by itself we get 9.

It is like asking:

What can we multiply by itself to get this?

To help you remember think of the root of a tree:
"I know the tree, but what is the root that made it?"
In this case the tree is "9", and the root is "3".

Here are some more squares and square roots:

4
5
6

=
=
=

16
25
36

Decimal Numbers
It also works for decimal numbers.

Negatives
We found out before that we can square negative numbers:

Example: (3) squared

(3) (3) = 9
And of course 3 3 = 9 also.

So the square root of 9 could be 3 or +3

Example: What are the square roots of 25?

(5) (5) = 25
5 5 = 25
So the square roots of 25 are 5 and +5

The Square Root Symbol

This is the special symbol that means "square root", it is sort of like a tick,
and actually started hundreds of years ago as a dot with a flick upwards.
It is called the radical, and always makes mathematics look important!
We use it like this:

and we say "square root of 9 equals 3"

Example: What is 25?

Well, we just happen to know that 25 = 5 5, so when we multiply 5 by itself (5 5) we will
get 25.
So the answer is:

25 = 5
But wait a minute! Can't the square root also be 5? Because (5) (5) = 25 too.

Well the square root of 25 could be 5 or +5.

But when we use the radical symbol we only give the positive (or zero) result.

Example: What is 36 ?
Answer: 6 6 = 36, so 36 = 6

Perfect Squares
The Perfect Squares (also called "Square Numbers") are the squares of the whole
numbers:

Perfect
Squares:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 etc
0 1 4 9 16 25 36 49 64 81 100 121 144 169 196 225 ...

Try to remember at least the first 10 of those.

Calculating Square Roots

It is easy to work out the square root of a perfect square, but it is really hard to work out
other square roots.

Example: what is 10?

Well, 3 3 = 9 and 4 4 = 16, so we can guess the answer is between 3 and 4.

Let's try 3.5: 3.5 3.5 = 12.25

Let's try 3.2: 3.2 3.2 = 10.24

Let's try 3.1: 3.1 3.1 = 9.61

...

Getting closer to 10, but it will take a long time to get a good answer!

At this point, I get out my calculator and it says:

3.1622776601683793319988935444327
But the digits just go on and on, without any pattern.
So even the calculator's answer is only an approximation !

A Fun Way to Calculate a Square Root

There is a fun method for calculating a square root that gets more and more accurate each
time around:
a) start with a guess (let's guess 4 is the square root of 10)
b) divide by the guess (10/4 = 2.5)
c) add that to the guess (4 + 2.5 = 6.5)
d) then divide that result by 2, in other words halve it. (6.5/2 = 3.25)
e) now, set that as the new guess, and start at b) again

Our first attempt got us from 4 to 3.25

Going again (b to e) gets us: 3.163

Going again (b to e) gets us: 3.1623

And so, after 3 times around the answer is 3.1623, which is pretty good, because:
3.1623 x 3.1623 = 10.00014
Now ... why don't you try calculating the square root of 2 this way?

How to Guess
What if we have to guess the square root for a difficult number such as "82,163" ... ?
In that case we could think "82,163" has 5 digits, so the square root might have 3 digits
(100x100=10,000), and the square root of 8 (the first digit) is about 3 (3x3=9), so 300 is a
good start.