How do you take the square root of a negative number?
Mathematics · Middle School · Tue Nov 03 2020
Answered on
In order to take the square root of a negative number we represent it with “i”, which signifies an imaginary number or an complex number.
Negative numbers do not primarily have a square root since they the square of any number is positive, even though it is negative, we know that when we multiply negative to itself the answer is still positive, that is why there is no negative answers for the square of a number, hence taking the square root of a negative number will yield an imaginary number.
Example:
= √-9
= 3i
=√-100
= 10i