Re: Plus/minus square roots?


<evolnet.regular@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1119710345.379238.200890@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> I've always thought that every positive integer had two square roots,
> but then I came across this website that said that the sign of a square
> root was dependent on the sign of its corresponding square. So what's
> the deal, physicians? Who's right; them or me?
>

Not sure what you are getting at here, so I may be trying to answer a
different question than you asked.

The square root of a positive number is a positive number. The square root
of negative numbers _should_ be written using _i_ to account for the
"imaginary number" in use.

For example. The square root of 9 is 3. The square root of -9 should be
written as 3i. If you say the square root of -9 is -3 it is wrong as -3*-3 =
9.

You can, I suppose, say all positive integers have two square roots (3
and -3 for example) but I am not a number theorist so I cant be 100% sure it
is correct terminology. Generally though, if you look for the square root of
a positive number you are looking for a positive square root.


.

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