How do you find the square root of 38.94?

2 Answers
Aug 5, 2016

=6.24

Explanation:

sqrt38.94
=6.24

Aug 5, 2016

You find it numerically. The actual square root is ~~ 6.2402.


The pattern with squares to get (n+1)^2 is to add the sum of n and n+1 onto n^2:

color(blue)((n+1)^2) = n^2 + 2n + 1

= color(blue)(n^2 + [(n) + (n+1)])

  1. Since 60^2 = 3600, 61^2 = 60^2 + 60 + 61 = 3721, and 62^2 = 61^2 + 61 + 62 = 3844.

  2. Since 3894 - 3844 < n, 3894 is not a perfect square. Furthermore, since 3894/100 = 38.94, and 100 = 10^2, if 3894 has no perfect square, neither does 38.94. Therefore, it has an irregular decimal answer.

  3. From the above pattern, 63^2 = 62^2 + 62 + 63 = 3969, and 3894 is 40% of the way from 3844 to 3969.

  4. Since x^2 is approximately linear at high x, we can estimate the square root of 38.94 to be about (62 + 0.4) xx 1/10 = color(blue)(6.24).

The actual square root is ~~ 6.2402.