Purpose
Find the positive square root of a number
Return value
Positive square root
Syntax
=SQRT(number)- number - The number to get the square root of.
Using the SQRT function
The Excel SQRT function returns the square root of a positive number. SQRT returns an error if number is negative.
The SQRT function takes one argument, number, which must be a numeric value. If number is not numeric, SQRT returns a #VALUE! error. If number is negative, SQRT returns a #NUM! error.
Examples
=SQRT(9) // returns 3
=SQRT(81) // returns 9
=SQRT(144) // returns 12
=SQRT(0.25) // returns 0.5
=SQRT(0) // returns 0
Negative numbers
The SQRT function will return a #NUM! error when number is negative:
=SQRT(-9) // returns #NUM!
To get the square root of a negative number (as if the number was positive), wrap the number in the ABS function like this:
=SQRT(ABS(-9)) // returns 3
Notes
- If number is not numeric, SQRT returns a #VALUE! error.
- If number is negative, SQRT returns a #NUM! error.
SQRT function examples
Square root of number
The SQRT function is fully automatic and will return the square root of any positive number. For example, to get the square root of 25, you can use: =SQRT(25) // returns 5 To get the square root of 16: =SQRT(16) // returns 4 To get the square root of a number in cell A1: =SQRT(A1) // square root of...
Distance formula
The length of a line can be calculated with the distance formula, which looks like this: Distance is the square root of the change in x squared plus the change in y squared, where two points are given in the form (x 1 , y 1 ) and (x 2 , y 2 ). The distance formula is an example of the Pythagorean...
Related functions
POWER Function
The Excel POWER function returns a number raised to a given power. The POWER function is an alternative to the exponent operator (^).
