How to Calculate a Square Root in Python

John on May 12, 2021

The square root of a number is a number that gives the original number when squared. The square root of 9 is 3 because 3x3 = 9.

In Python we can calculate the square root of a number using the power operator, which is ** (two asterisks.)

To use it, place the original number to the left of the power operator, raise the value to the power of 0.5 and store the result in a variable. Here is an example of getting the square root of 16:

original = 16

squ_root = original ** 0.5

print(squ_root)

4.0

Get Square Root with the Python math Package

For a cleaner syntax, you can use the .sqrt() function from the Python math package.

import math

original = 23

squ_root = math.sqrt(original)

print(squ_root)

4.795831523312719