Question

Every positive number has two square roots , a principal square root and its _____?

Answer 1

Definition: The square root of a number is another number, which on multiplying with itself, will give the original number.

Every positive number has two square roots. One square root is positive, while the other is exactly same, but negative. The positive square root of a number is called its principle square root. For example, 10 and -10 are the two square roots of 100, but 10 is called the principle square root.

Hence every positive number has two square roots , a principal square root and its opposite negative.

Answer 2

Negative

Explanation:

Since multiplication of two negative numbers is always positive, we get

`x *x =x^2` and
`-x*-x =x^2`

This gives us an idea about square root

A positive number can be expressed

as a*a and -a*-a

Thus there will be two square roots one positive which is called the principal square root

The other number will be the same in value but with a negative sign.