A Simple Way of Squaring a Number

A Simple Way of Squaring a Number

This tutorial might be helpful to students who find it hard squaring a number. How do you square a number? Simply multiply the number by itself to get a perfect square. Example:

5² = 5 x 5 = 25

Some will find it hard when the number to be squared is greater than 10, like:

12² = 12 x 12 = ?

Normally, you will use a calculator or get a piece of paper and pen and compute manually to get the answer which is 144.

But what if you don't have any calculator or a piece of paper and pen to get the right answer? Can you be able to answer it visually? 

Here's the simple steps:

1. Multiply the last digits (2x2) which is 4
2. Add the last two digits (2+2) which is 4 then multiply by the 1st digit (4*1) which is still 4
3. Multiply the first 2 digits (1x1) which is 1
4. Get the results which is 144

So,  12 x 12 = 144

How about if the digits are more than tens? Let's try computing the following visually.

26² = 26 x 26 = ?

Based on our steps above, let's try to answer it this way:

1. 36
2. 12 * 2 = 24
3. 4

As you see, our answers are 36, 24 and 4. We only need to get the last digit for the correct answer, so we only leave the digit 6 from 36 and add the first digit which is 3 to the next result which is 24, you will get 27. Leave the last digit 7 from 27 and add the first digit which is 2 to the next result which is 4, you will get 6. Based on our solutions, the correct answer for squaring 26 is 676.

Constant practice will eventually harness your mind in visual computation. This technique is also applicable to multiplying non-negative numbers or integers like 12 x 26 but I just have only explained on how to square a number visually.

I would appreciate hearing from you or please share your links related to this topic so that others may also learn or benefit from it.