Find the square root of 56 using prime factorization. Make sure your response is a square root!

1 answer

To find the square root of 56 using prime factorization, we first need to factor 56 into its prime components.

  1. Start by dividing 56 by the smallest prime number, which is 2: \[ 56 \div 2 = 28 \]

  2. Next, divide 28 by 2 again: \[ 28 \div 2 = 14 \]

  3. Divide 14 by 2 once more: \[ 14 \div 2 = 7 \]

  4. Finally, 7 is a prime number.

Now we can write the prime factorization of 56: \[ 56 = 2^3 \times 7 \]

To find the square root, we take the square root of the prime factorization: \[ \sqrt{56} = \sqrt{2^3 \times 7} \]

We can separate this into two parts: \[ \sqrt{56} = \sqrt{2^2 \times 2^1 \times 7} = \sqrt{2^2} \times \sqrt{2^1} \times \sqrt{7} \]

Now, calculating each part: \[ \sqrt{2^2} = 2 \quad \text{and} \quad \sqrt{2^1} = \sqrt{2} \] Thus, \[ \sqrt{56} = 2 \times \sqrt{2} \times \sqrt{7} \]

Combining the radicals, we have: \[ \sqrt{56} = 2 \times \sqrt{14} \]

Therefore, the square root of 56 expressed with prime factorization is: \[ \sqrt{56} = 2\sqrt{14} \]