Square root of 3

Square root of 3
	The height of an equilateral triangle with sides of length 2 equals the square root of 3.
Representations
Decimal	1.7320508075688772935...
Continued fraction

The square root of 3 is the positive real number that, when multiplied by itself, gives the number 3. It is denoted mathematically as ${\textstyle {\sqrt {3}}}$ or $3^{1/2}$ . It is more precisely called the principal square root of 3 to distinguish it from the negative 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.^[1]

In 2013, its numerical value in decimal notation was computed to ten billion digits.^[2] Its decimal expansion, written here to 65 decimal places, is given by OEIS: A002194:

1.732050807568877293527446341505872366942805253810380628055806

Archimedes reported a range for its value: ${\textstyle ({\frac {1351}{780}})^{2}>3>({\frac {265}{153}})^{2}}$ .^[3]

The upper limit ${\textstyle {\frac {1351}{780}}}$ is an accurate approximation for ${\sqrt {3}}$ to ${\textstyle {\frac {1}{608,400}}}$ (six decimal places, relative error ${\textstyle 3\times 10^{-7}}$ ) and the lower limit ${\textstyle {\frac {265}{153}}}$ to ${\textstyle {\frac {2}{23,409}}}$ (four decimal places, relative error ${\textstyle 1\times 10^{-5}}$ ).

Geometry and trigonometry

The height of an equilateral triangle with edge length 2 is √3. Also, the long leg of a 30-60-90 triangle with hypotenuse 2.

And, the height of a regular hexagon with sides of length 1

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 ${\textstyle {\frac {1}{2}}}$ and ${\textstyle {\frac {\sqrt {3}}{2}}}$ . From this, ${\textstyle \tan {60^{\circ }}={\sqrt {3}}}$ , ${\textstyle \sin {60^{\circ }}={\frac {\sqrt {3}}{2}}}$ , and ${\textstyle \cos {30^{\circ }}={\frac {\sqrt {3}}{2}}}$ .

The square root of 3 also appears in algebraic expressions for various other trigonometric constants, including^[4] the sines of other angles.

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.