13th root 13th root Extracting the 13th root of a number is a famous category for the mental calculation world records. The challenge consists of being given a large number (possibly over 100 digits) and asked to return the number that, when taken to the 13th power, equals the given number. For example, the 13th root of 8,192 is 2 and the 13th root of 96,889,010,407 is 7. Extracting the 13th root has certain properties. One is that the 13th root of a number is much smaller: a 13th root will have approximately 1/13th the number of digits. Thus, the 13th root
Square root of 2 Square root of 2 The square root of 2, or the (1/2)th power of 2, written in mathematics as or , is the positive algebraic number that, when multiplied by itself, gives the number 2. Technically, it is called the principal square root of 2, to distinguish it from the negative number with the same property. Geometrically the square root of 2 is the length of a diagonal across a square with sides of one unit of length; this follows from the Pythagorean theorem. It was probably the first number known to be irrational. As a good rational approximation for