• Daisy (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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      1 年前

      Don’t know why you are being down voted. You are correct. There is a difference between a square root and the solutions of x2 = n.

      • Acters@lemmy.world
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        1 年前

        Yeah, square root implies absolute numbers. You need to manually multiply by -1 to get the other solution to x^2

      • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
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        1 年前

        No?

        In mathematics, a square root of a number x is a number y such that y² = x; in other words, a number y whose square (the result of multiplying the number by itself, or y ⋅ y) is x. For example, 4 and −4 are square roots of 16 because 4² = ( − 4 )² = 16.

        Wikipedia


        Edit: I’m wrong lol, there is a difference between the square root function, which accepts two results, and the square root, or principal square root, which is a unique positive number

        • Opisek@lemmy.world
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          1 年前

          So close yet so far. If only you had read ONE more paragraph.

          Every nonnegative real number x has a unique nonnegative square root, called the principal square root or simply the square root (with a definite article, see below), which is denoted by √x where the symbol “√” is called the radical sign or radix.

          • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
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            1 年前

            This sentence made no sense to me as it directly contradicted the previous one. But it’s just a confusion on my part between the function called square root, which confusingly outputs two different numbers called “square roots”, and “the” number called square root; I’ve edited my comment. Thanks for correcting me!

            • Opisek@lemmy.world
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              1 年前

              Yeah, I see how that can happen. Very confusing to have the same name for two things differentiated only by the use of a definite or indefinite article.