# Square Root of an Odd Powered Integer is Always Irrational?

• B
mfb
Mentor
I'd like to deposit " " in my bank account please. That should be free, right?

Nugatory
Mentor
However, floating point has exact and predictable behavior.
Yes, although that statement might easily be misunderstood by someone who hasn’t been through the wars. As many pre-IEEE floating point designs demonstrated, “exact and predictable” does not preclude “bizarre and surprising”.

IEEE-754 is one of the underappreciated triumphs of computing, making the world safer for the naive every day.

pbuk and jbriggs444
The nth root of x given by =int(x^(1/n)) in Excel is an integer ;)

jbriggs444
Homework Helper
The nth root of x given by =int(x^(1/n)) in Excel is an integer ;)
Are you suggesting something like...

Put some positive integer into A1
Put some positive integer into A2
Put =A1^A2 into A3
Put =INT(A3^(1/A2)) into A4
Observe that A4 is equal to A1 unless an overflow has occurred while computing A3

Are you suggesting something like...

Put some positive integer into A1
Put some positive integer into A2
Put =A1^A2 into A3
Put =INT(A3^(1/A2)) into A4
Observe that A4 is equal to A1 unless an overflow has occurred while computing A3
It was just an attempt at a joke, but per the OP x would be a^some odd power and n would be 1/2

Baluncore