Cube root polar angle by three in order to define a cube root. With this definition, the principal cube root of a negative number is a complex number, and for instance will not be −2, but rather . This difficulty can also be solved by considering the cube root as a multivalued function: if we write the original complex number "x" in three equivalent forms, namely The principal complex cube roots of these three forms are then respectively Unless , these three complex numbers are distinct, even though the three representations of "x" were equivalent. For example, may then be calculated to
Nth root Any expression containing a radical, whether it is a square root, a cube root, or a higher root, is called a "radical expression", and if it contains no transcendental functions or transcendental numbers it is called an algebraic expression. In calculus, roots are treated as special cases of exponentiation, where the exponent is a fraction: Roots are particularly important in the theory of infinite series; the root test determines the radius of convergence of a power series. Roots can also be defined for complex numbers, and the complex roots of 1 (the roots of unity) play an important role in