I was doing some math, and I came across the problem √1000
And I was thinking about other square roots of numbers with various amounts of zeros. And it occurred to me that it seemed like numbers with odd numbers of tagging zeros had a decimal square root.
So I was curious: Is there a number with an odd number of tagging zeros, but has a whole number for its square root?
For example:
102000 has three tagging zeros, but its square root is 319.374388453
Note: I am new to square roots, so please try to explain some of the terms to me.
Thanks!
Answer
The number n>0 has the form n=2k⋅5l⋅r, where k,l are non-negative integers and r is a positive integer not divisible by 2 and 5. Let m=min(k,l). Then n has exactly m tagging zeros because each tagging zero corresponds to a factor 10=2⋅5. Let n have an integer square root s. Write s=2k′⋅5l′⋅r′ as above. Then n=s2=22k′⋅52l′⋅(r′)2. Since r′ is not divisible by 2 and 5, also (r′)2 is not divisible by 2 and 5. We conclude k=2k′ and l=2l′, hence m=min(2k′,2l′)=2min(k′,l′) is even.
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