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All irrational numbers are radicals.
True or false and why?

User Jobayer
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1 Answer

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Answer: False

Here are some counter examples to disprove the original claim.

  • log(5) = 0.69897 ... where the log base is not any power of 5
  • sin(27) = 0.45399
  • pi = 3.14159
  • e^3 = 20.0855369

The decimal values are approximate.

All of those values are known as transcendental numbers. These are a class of numbers where we cannot write them as a root of some other number. It's similar to the idea how irrational numbers cannot be written as a ratio of two integers. All transcendental numbers are irrational, but not the other way around.

So in short, it is possible to have an irrational number where it's not a radical.

User Nick Wills
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