Mathematics Question?

Question

When I was attempting to solve a problem, I got to a point where the equation was 
  x^2 = - 6.25  and knowing that square roots do not work on negatives, I instead did -6.25^0.5, when checking the answers it was correct, but i am not sure if this is a correct way of doing it . Is this ok to do?

Answer

No. A negative number has an imaginary root. So you take the root of 6.25 and use lower case i to indicate "imaginary". &radic;-6.25 = &radic;6.25 x &radic;-1 = 2.5i

Answer

You can multiply both by negative to make the 6.25 positive, then do the root on both sides, -x=2.5, so X=-2.5.

Mathematics Question?

Responses (2)