SQRT Function in Excel – Usage with Examples

The SQRT Function in Excel is a type of Mathematical function. The Function is useful for mathematical calculations. So let’s start learning.

When to use SQRT Function in Excel?

As the name suggests, the Excel SQRT function calculates any number’s square root. The SQRT function works the same as the POWER Function.

The SQRT Function returns a #NUM! error if we try to find the square root of any negative number.

Syntax and Arguments

=SQRT(number)

The following points would explain to you the SQRT Function inputs.

  • number – This is the value whose square root we want to find out. This can be a numerical value, reference to a cell, a formula result, or a range of cells.

Points to Remember about the SQRT Formula

The following points about the SQRT Function must be kept in mind before implementing the formula.

  • The function returns a #VALUE! error if we supply a text string as the SQRT Function input.
  • SQRT Function treats logical TRUE and FALSE as 1 and 0 respectively.
  • The dates in excel have their own numerical values. For example, 1 Jan 1900 implies 1, 2 Jan 1900 implies 2, and so on. Therefore, when we supply date as the SQRT Function argument, it returns the square root of the numerical value for that date.
  • If you have Excel 365 or Excel 2021, the SQRT Function can also work as a dynamic array formula. In other words, we can say that we can supply a range of numbers into one SQRT Formula. As a result, the SQRT function result would spill into a range containing the square root of all numbers passed as a function argument range.
  • The SQRT function result can be rounded off to certain digits by using the ROUND Function in Excel.
  • We can wrap the negative number in the ABS Function to get the square root value of a negative number by using its absolute value.
infographics sqrt function in excel

Examples to learn the usage of SQRT Formula

In this section of the blog, we would perform some practical experimentation with the SQRT formula in Excel.

Example 1 – Basic Example for SQRT formula

Let us suppose we have the following set of numerical values in the range A2:A7.

example SQRT function excel raw data

Use the following formula in cell B2.

=SQRT(A2)

Select the range B2:B7 and press the ctrl D key to copy the formula down the range B2:B7.

example SQRT function excel result

As a result, the formula gives us the square root of the values in the range A2:A7.

Explanation – We have supplied the cells in the range A2:A7 as SQRT function input to get the results in range B2:B7. The square root of 16 and 9 is 4 and 3 respectively.

Cell A4 contains a negative value which is why the function returns a #NUM! error.

Cell A5 has a text string, a text string supplied as the SQRT Function input always returns a #VALUE! error.

34 is not a perfect square number therefore the SQRT function returns the result as 5.830951895

The numerical value of the date in cell A7 is 6. The SQRT function returns the result based on that value.

Example 2 – Square root of Negative number

If we have negative values in our data set and we want to compute the Square root value based on its positive/absolute value, then we can use the ABS function along with the SQRT Function.

For Example, let us suppose we have the following set of values.

sqrt with abs function excel

Use the following formula in cell B2.

=SQRT(ABS(A2))

Copy the formula down the range B2:B5.

sqrt with abs function excel result

As a result, the formula returns 4 as the square root of value in cell A2.

Explanation – We have negative numbers in cells A2, A3, and A4. The SQRT function doesn’t operate on negative values. So we converted the negative number to a positive number with ABS Function.

=ABS(A2) converts -16 to +16 and thus,

=SQRT(ABS(-16)) becomes =SQRT(+16)

Example 3 – Rounding off the SQRT function result

When a number x that is not a perfect square is passed to the SQRT Function, returns a number with too many digits after the decimal. For instance.

rounding off sqrt result excel

We can round off this result to a certain number of digits by using the ROUND Function in Excel.

The syntax is:-

=ROUND(SQRT(x),y)

where x is the actual number and y is the number of digits we want after the decimal in the SQRT result.

Use the following formula to find the square root of 45 rounded up to 2 digits after the decimal.

=ROUND(SQRT(45),2)
rounding off sqrt result excel RESULT

This brings us to the end of the blog.

Thank you for reading.

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