Simplifying Square Roots

Date: 9/4/95 at 19:39:43
From: Anonymous
Subject: Math

I am in grade 2.

Square root of 812?

Date: 9/6/95 at 11:44:7
From: Doctor Ken
Subject: Re: Math

Hello!

Wow, I'm impressed that you know about square roots in grade 2!  That's neat.
Square roots can be a lot of fun.  

To take the square root of a number that's not a perfect square, people
usually just use a calculator.  There is a way to take square roots with a
pencil and paper (it looks kind of like long division), and if you're 
interested we can send it to you.

The one thing you can do pretty easily without a calculator is to simplify
square roots.  For instance, the square root of 24 is 2 times the square root
of 6, since 24 = 4 x 6 and 2 squared is 4.  Does that make sense?

Using a calculator, I find that the square root of 812 is about 28.4956

- Doctor Ken,  The Geometry Forum