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Technically, it should be called the principal square root of 2, to distinguish it from the negative number with the same property. Geometrically, the square root of 2 is the length of a diagonal across a square with sides of one unit of length; this follows from the Pythagorean theorem. It was probably the first number known to be irrational. [1]
The square root of 2 was likely the first number proved irrational. [27] The golden ratio is another famous quadratic irrational number. The square roots of all natural numbers that are not perfect squares are irrational and a proof may be found in quadratic irrationals.
The classic proof that the square root of 2 is irrational is a refutation by contradiction. [11] Indeed, we set out to prove the negation ¬ ∃ a, b ∈ . a/b = √ 2 by assuming that there exist natural numbers a and b whose ratio is the square root of two, and derive a contradiction.
The discovery of irrational numbers is said to have been shocking to the Pythagoreans, and Hippasus is supposed to have drowned at sea, apparently as a punishment from the gods for divulging this and crediting it to himself instead of Pythagoras which was the norm in Pythagorean society.
The proof by Pythagoras about 500 BCE has had a profound effect on mathematics. It shows that the square root of 2 cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers. The proof bifurcated "the numbers" into two non-overlapping collections—the rational numbers and the irrational numbers.
For example, the square root of 2 is an irrational number, but it is not a transcendental number as it is a root of the polynomial equation x 2 − 2 = 0. The golden ratio (denoted or ) is another irrational number that is not transcendental, as it is a root of the polynomial equation x 2 − x − 1 = 0.
The square root of 2 is irrational, and 3 is rational. is also irrational: if it were equal to , then, by the properties of logarithms, 9 n would be equal to 2 m, but the former is odd, and the latter is even. A more substantial example is the graph minor theorem.
The square root of 2 is an algebraic number equal to the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle with legs of length 1.. An algebraic number is a number that is a root of a non-zero polynomial in one variable with integer (or, equivalently, rational) coefficients.