Math Question

[Fyron]

You can not have numbers less than -4 in the domain, as then you would have the square root of a negative number, which is impossible in normal math. This leads to being unable to have a negative number in the range, as there is no way to get a negative number by taking a square root. Any value in the domain leads to a number that is either 0 or positive.

When you have y ^ 2 = x, y can be positive or negative because either a positive or negative value squared can lead to x. But when you have y = x ^ (1/2), you do not have negative numbers, as this is not at all the case of y ^ 2 = x. In the square root case (ignoring complex math, which you are not doing), you are limited to taking square roots of positive numbers (or 0), and square roots are always positive.

[ April 01, 2004, 20:35: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]