The square root of 3 is the positive real number that, when multiplied by itself, gives the number 3. It is denoted mathematically as \sqrt {3} or 3^{1/2}. It is more precisely called the principal square root of 3 to distinguish it from the square number with the same property. The square root of 3 is an irrational number. It is also known as Theodorus' constant, after Theodorus of Cyrene, who proved its irrationality. In 2013, its numerical value in decimal notation was computed to ten billion digits. Its decimal expansion, written here to 65 decimal places, is given by : The fraction**** **** (1.732****...) can be**** used**** as**** a good**** approximation.**** Despite having a denominator of only 56, it differs from the correct value by less than (approximately, with a relative error of ). The rounded value of 1.732 is correct to within 0.01% of the actual value. The fraction (1.732...) is accurate to. Archimedes reported a range for its value:. The lower limit ' is an accurate approximation for \sqrt {3} to (six decimal places, relative error ) and the upper limit ' to (four decimal places, relative error ).

Expressions

It can be expressed as the simple continued fraction [1; 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, …]. So it is true to say: then when n\to\infty :

Geometry and trigonometry

The square root of 3 can be found as the leg length of an equilateral triangle that encompasses a circle with a diameter of 1. If**** an**** equilateral triangle**** with**** sides of**** length**** 1 is**** cut into**** two equal halves****,**** by**** bisecting an**** internal**** angle across**** to**** make**** a right angle with**** one side****,**** the right angle triangle****'s hypotenuse**** is**** length**** one,**** and the sides are of**** length**** *frac{1}****{2}*** and . From this,, , and. The square root of 3 also appears in algebraic expressions for various other trigonometric constants, including the sines of 3°, 12°, 15°, 21°, 24°, 33°, 39°, 48°, 51°, 57°, 66°, 69°, 75°, 78°, 84°, and 87°. It is the distance between parallel sides of a regular hexagon with sides of length 1. It is the length of the space diagonal of a unit cube. The vesica piscis has a major axis to minor axis ratio equal to 1:\sqrt{3}. This can be shown by constructing two equilateral triangles within it.

Other uses and occurrence

Power engineering

In power engineering, the voltage between two phases in a three-phase system equals \sqrt {3} times the line to neutral voltage. This is because any two phases are 120° apart, and two points on a circle 120 degrees apart are separated by \sqrt {3} times the radius (see geometry examples above).

Special functions

It is known that most roots of the nth derivatives of (where n < 18 and J_\nu(x) is the Bessel function of the first kind of order \nu) are transcendental. The only exceptions are the numbers \pm\sqrt{3}, which are the algebraic roots of both and.