Ask Dr. Math

Middle School Archive

Browse Middle School Square Roots
Stars indicate particularly interesting answers or good places to begin browsing.

Selected answers to common questions:
    Square roots without a calculator.
    Table of squares & square roots, 1-100.

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Using the Ones Digit to Estimate Square Roots [02/11/2005]

I am having trouble figuring out square roots quickly. For bigger numbers like 289, I have to try a lot of numbers before I get the answer. Is there some way to do this more easily?

What is the Square Root of 8? [6/13/1996]

What is the square root of 8?

What's the Square Root of 75? [08/18/2002]

Is the square root of 75 15(sqrt 5) or 5(sqrt 15)?

Why Can't the Square Root of a Negative Number Be a Real Number? [12/07/2003]

Can you explain why you can't find the square root of a negative number on the real number line?

Why Does the Order of Square/Square Root Matter? [8/28/1996]

Why does the square root of x^2 equal absolute value of x, but the square of the square root of x equals just plain old x?

Why Do We Rationalize Fractions? [11/29/2005]

Why do we have to simplify fractions that have a radical in the denominator to remove that radical and rationalize the denominator? Why is that important?

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