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Contents
Surds
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Surds
Origins of Surds
The problem of surds has been
occurring for a long time, since the development of the Pythagorean theorem.
Look at the right-angled triangle:
By Pythagorean
theorem,
x2 = 1 +
1
=
2
So how do we find an
expression for x?
What is a surd?
The surd notation is another way of
expressing fractional indices. It also means the roots of a number, for example,
the square root of 2 or the cube root of 5. The number 21/2 can be
expressed as
. 
Generally, 
Most surds are irrational numbers.
These are those without exact roots. For example,
= 1.414213562....
The number continues indefinitely.
Irrational number: A number that
cannot be expressed as a ratio of two numbers.
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