Microsoft Excel has a wide range of mathematical functions to solve complex problems. A number of simple actions - addition, multiplication and others - are very easy to perform using special characters. However, there are those that require a special description - so, not everyone knows how to calculate the square root in Excel.
What is a square root ?
Before starting to learn the process of how to find the square root in Excel, you should take a closer look at what this mathematical function is. By definition, the square root of a is a number whose square is equal to a. In the mathematical sciences you can find not only square roots. They also come in any other degree, so the square root is often called the root of the second degree.
Root function
When solving the problem of finding the square root in Excel, you can get the desired result in several ways. The program’s functionality allows you to both use the built-in decision algorithms and write it yourself, using special theorems and root properties. The easiest way to find the answer is to use the square root function. In Excel, you can call it by opening the function menu or by manually writing it.
The syntax of the function is very simple - after indicating the use of one of the functions (equal sign), it is necessary to register the keyword "ROOT", indicating the call of the corresponding command. Next, in brackets it remains to write the variable from which you want to extract the square root. In Excel, as an argument to a function, you can use either an explicit numeric value or a cell reference, as well as some mathematical expression that results in a number.
Using math properties
The square root in Excel can also be calculated by a number of other methods that do not require deep knowledge in the mathematical sciences. To do this, it is enough to know what the root is - this topic was raised in the first section of the article. Using the definition of the square root, it can be represented as the inverse power of two of the desired number. Thus, you can get the square root without using the ROOT function by simply raising the number to a power.
There are two ways to do this. The first is to use another function - "DEGREE". She raises the specified number or the result of a mathematical expression to a selected degree. In this case, it is necessary to indicate the number 1/2 or 0.5 in the "Degree" column. It is possible to raise any number to a certain degree without using any functions - in Excel there is a special symbol responsible for this operation: "^". In this case, to get the square root, it is enough to enclose the expression in brackets, after which add "^ (1/2)" or "^ (0.5)". The result of this action will be similar to exponentiation using a function, as well as using the ROOT function.
It is worth noting that the method of finding the root with exponentiation is more convenient. The reason for this is the fact that using these operations you can get a root of any degree without using any special additional calculations.
Examples
To finally figure out how to calculate the square root in Excel, it is worth considering a couple of examples for the two methods described above.
In the first case, we use the "ROOT" function by calling it using the "Insert Function" button. In the window that opens, it remains to specify the data for calculation, for example, the difference between the values of two cells, and click "OK."
In the second case, using a more readable option, with explicitly specifying the degree of the number, we obtain the following expression for finding the square root of a number, for example, 9:
The result of this action will be the value "3".