What is the formula for calculating a square root?

Hi Jonathan,

There is no "formula" for calculating square roots. Your calculator uses a procedure to approximate a square root. For example when I used my calculator to find the square root of 7 it gave me 2.6457513110646. I know this is an approximation because the square root of 7 cannot be written using only a finite number of places after the decimal. One procedure for approximating a square root (not the one my calculator uses) is described in the answer to a question we received previously called Approximating roots.

Cheers,
Penny