Talk:Square root

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Archive 1

No-overline radical[edit]

@Deacon Vorbis: Regarding this revert and your preference for √x over √x: MOS:RADICAL says the √x style "should be avoided whenever technically possible to do so" and that "The use of √ with no overline is acceptable for simple expressions, as long as the operand is unambiguous." <math>...</math> cannot be used in this instance because it is in an image caption, but √ can be used because the operand is simple. By my reading, √x is thus the preferred style in this instance. I don't think whether you or I particularly like this markup has any bearing on which markup to use, since it was determined by RFC (which we both participated in). Did you have any other argument to make other than that you personally think it's "horrible"? -- Beland (talk) 01:56, 4 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Deacon Vorbis has left Wikipedia, so I restored this change. -- Beland (talk) 03:51, 7 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 9 June 2021[edit]

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Somewhere at the start (preferably after "...in other words, a number y whose square is x."), please add the √ unicode symbol with text like "The symbol for this operation is √ (U+221A) in unicode" for square root. I originally wanted this so that I can easily copy this sign by searching it on Google. 213.127.94.109 (talk) 18:34, 9 June 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Giving the unicode is more appropriate at radical sign, which is linked from the lead. Indeed, it can be found at Radical_symbol#Encoding. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 18:53, 9 June 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Positive roots[edit]

In the first paragraph it says -4 is a square root of 16. This isn’t true at all? The only square root of 16 is 4. -4^2=-(4)^2=-16 according to most calculators (I used wolframalpha). Also, the graph of y=sqrt(x) only has positive values for y. Otherwise you couldn’t graph the function.

I understand that the equation x^2=16 has two solutions, namely x=-sqrt(16)=-4 and x=sqrt(16)=4, but as you can see here we do not have sqrt16=-4 as this is simply not true. 86.89.184.222 (talk) 17:11, 28 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You got tripped up by operator precedence. Try entering (-4)^2 into a calculator, you will see that the answer will be positive. MrOllie (talk) 17:20, 28 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

When a negative gets negated in multiplication (-4^2 = -4*-4), it become positive. User:Slaythe — Preceding undated comment added 15:59, 13 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 13 October 2022[edit]

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The principal square root not being identified as positive might be confusing to the reader. User:Slaythe Slaythe (talk) 15:55, 13 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not done: Please be more more explicit, and say which sentence is confusing. Also, the principal square root of zero is not positive, and this is the reason for which "non-negative" is used instead of "positive". D.Lazard (talk) 16:53, 13 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]