Welcome to our lesson on calculating square roots. A square root of a number is a value that, when multiplied by itself, gives the original number. For example, the square root of 25 is 5, because 5 multiplied by 5 equals 25. We can visualize this with squares: a square with area 25 has sides of length 5.
There are several methods to calculate square roots. First, for perfect squares like 1, 4, 9, 16, and so on, you can simply memorize their square roots. Second, the most common method is using a calculator with the square root button. Third, you can estimate square roots by finding the perfect squares they fall between. For example, the square root of 20 is between 4 and 5, since 16 is less than 20, and 25 is greater than 20.
Let's practice estimating a square root using the example of the square root of 50. First, we identify the perfect squares on either side of 50. We know that 7 squared is 49, and 8 squared is 64. Since 49 is less than 50, and 64 is greater than 50, we can say that the square root of 50 is between 7 and 8. Since 50 is just slightly larger than 49, the square root of 50 is just slightly larger than 7. A more precise value is approximately 7.07, which you can verify by calculating 7.07 times 7.07, which gives us about 50.