Cube root Cube root In mathematics, a cube root of a number "x" is a number "y" such that "y" = "x". All real numbers (except zero) have exactly one real cube root and a pair of complex conjugate cube roots, and all nonzero complex numbers have three distinct complex cube roots. For example, the real cube root of 8, denoted , is 2, because 2 = 8, while the other cube roots of 8 are −1 + "i" and −1 − "i". The three cube roots of −27"i" are The cube root operation is not distributive with addition or subtraction. In
Cube root this required the construction, now known to be impossible, of the length . A method for extracting cube roots appears in "The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art", a Chinese mathematical text compiled around the 2nd century BCE and commented on by Liu Hui in the 3rd century CE. The Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria devised a method for calculating cube roots in the 1st century CE. His formula is again mentioned by Eutokios in a commentary on Archimedes. In 499 CE Aryabhata, a mathematician-astronomer from the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy, gave a method for finding