Abstract / résuméCUMC / CCEM 2005



Name / nom: Mathieu Guay-Paquet

School / école: McGill University

Length / durée: 25 min

Title / titre: The Long Lost Art of Square-Rooting

Abstract / résumé:

Given only pen and paper, you already know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers. If you know some calculus (and have lots of patience), you could also use power series or Newton's method to compute trig functions and exponentials. What about square roots? You can also use power series or Newton's method, but there is a much more pen-and-paper-friendly method, very similar to long division. We explore this algorithm, how it works, and how it can be extended to cube roots and others.

Prerequisites / choses nécessaires: No background beyond basic arithmetic is needed.



PDF format / format PDF: guay-paquet.pdf