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
Doubling the cube at solving what they saw as an obstinate but soluble problem. However, the nonexistence of a solution was finally proven by Pierre Wantzel in 1837. In algebraic terms, doubling a unit cube requires the construction of a line segment of length , where ; in other words, . This is because a cube of side length 1 has a volume of , and a cube of twice that volume (a volume of 2) has a side length of the cube root of 2. The impossibility of doubling the cube is therefore equivalent to the statement that is not a constructible