Talk:Nth root
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Short description
[edit]@CactiStaccingCrane, I think your example short description is pretty intriguing. I do think these classes of short description ("brief examples", or "use of widely understood notation", say) are valid, but I worry that this one in particular is problematic. I'm not sure how to put it other than that it's odd to see mathematical notation introduced to an encyclopedia article before the word "math" (or "arithmetic, et al.) I was wondering if you had further thoughts. — Remsense诉 04:08, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, I do think it might look a little bit off, as there is a very intense debate about that at Wikipedia talk:Short description about this. My personal opinion here is that the short description should help searchers find the page easier and a short description like "Arithmetic operation" does not sound too helpful for that. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 04:15, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
Illegible examples
[edit]The two examples in the "Computing principal roots" section using preformatted text are totally illegible on mobile due to line wrapping. They desperately need reformatting, preferably using a table. Hairy Dude (talk) 01:25, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
- Feel free to take a crack at it. It could probably also be done with an SVG image. –jacobolus (t) 18:35, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
"Radix" as a term for the radical sign?
[edit]I cannot anywhere find a reference where "radix" has this meaning. I have accordingly deleted it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:7000:8100:3600:B9CC:9762:DC72:5A8F (talk) 14:22, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
- It's fine to leave this without synonyms here. The word "radix" just means "root" in Latin. Before the √ symbol some authors used ℞ (as an abbreviation for "radix") to mean square root. You can learn more in e.g. Cajori's History of Mathematical Notations. –jacobolus (t) 15:28, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
Expla… Explodation!
[edit]There says somebody things like "10^0·1·0^0·1^2 + 10^1·2·0^1·1^1 ≤ 1 < 10^0·1·0^0·2^2 + 10^1·2·0^1·2^1".
Let’s have a closer look on this:
"10^0·1·0^0·1^2 + 10^1·2·0^1·1^1 ≤ 1 < 10^0·1·0^0·2^2 + 10^1·2·0^1·2^1"
evaluated powers:
"1·1·1·1 + 10·2·1·1 ≤ 1 < 1·1·1·4 + 10·2·1·2"
evaluated multiplications:
"1 + 20 ≤ 1 < 4 + 40"
evaluated additions:
"21 ≤ 1 < 44"
21 < 44, ok; 1 < 44, ok; but 21 < 1⁇
Nice!
In other words: there is a giant lack of explanation! Even without such strange math-“explanation”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.166.39.233 (talk) 02:50, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
Another concept of root
[edit]There should be some mention of another concept of root in complex numbers, where the nth root function is in a certain way multivalued and it is defined as the set of all n roots (which can also be found in the literature). IMO both concepts have their advantages and disadvantages, the advantage of this concept is that then the equation root(a*b)=root(a)*root(a) holds generally, the disadvantage is that set operations would be needed. (Sorry for my English.) PavelTom (talk) 17:31, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
- The fact that every nonzero number has n complex nth roots is mentioned in various places in the article. D.Lazard (talk) 20:04, 19 October 2025 (UTC)