What is it telling me to do

Question

asked Apr 11, 2019 131k views

1 Answer

Richard Stokes · Answer 1 · 2019-04-15T05:51:35+0000

This problem gives you the area of a square, and asks for the length of a side. The formula for the area
of a square, knowing the side
, is

A = s^2

But we are in the opposite situation: we know the area and we are looking for the side. So, we need to invert the formula above:

$s = \pm√(A)$

But since the length of a side can't be negative, we choose

s = √(A)

So, if we plug the value for the area, we have

s = √(20.25) = 4.5