127k views
1 vote
Provide a beautiful proof of the following claim: The square of a rational number is a rational number.

1 Answer

6 votes

Answer:

This fact about rational numbers is very simple. Remember
x is a rational number if it is a number of the form
(p)/(q) where
p,q are integers and
q\\eq 0. To prove this result about rational numbers you can consider a rational number
x=(p)/(q). Then, the square of
x is given by


x^(2)=x\cdot x=(p)/(q)\cdot (p)/(q)=(p^2)/(q^(2))

Note that
x^(2) satisfies the definition of a rational numbers.

Explanation:

User Freshbm
by
6.7k points