Cube root solution expressions involve the real cube root of a real number, while if all three solutions are real numbers then they may be expressed in terms of the complex cube root of a complex number. Quartic equations can also be solved in terms of cube roots and square roots. The calculation of cube roots can be to traced back to Babylonian mathematicians from as early as 1800 BCE. In the fourth century BCE Plato posed the problem of doubling the cube, which required a compass-and-straightedge construction of the edge of a cube with twice the volume of a given cube;
Nth root group: Find the square root of 152.2756. Find the cube root of 4192 to the nearest hundredth. The principal "n"th root of a positive number can be computed using logarithms. Starting from the equation that defines "r" as an "n"th root of "x", namely formula_80 with "x" positive and therefore its principal root "r" also positive, one takes logarithms of both sides (any base of the logarithm will do) to obtain The root "r" is recovered from this by taking the antilog: For the case in which "x" is negative and "n" is odd, there is one real root "r"