Video narration
If you had 36 equal tiles and had to make a perfect square, how many tiles would go along one side? Arrange them in rows and columns: six rows, with six tiles in each row, use all 36. Now the shape has equal sides, and each side has six tiles. But that side count is the clue. The square root is not a mysterious new calculation. It asks: which number, multiplied by itself, makes 36? Six times six equals 36, so the answer is six. You can check it by multiplying those side counts. We write that same question in a shorter way: √36 = 6. The sign asks how many equal tiles fit along one side of a square with 36 tiles altogether. In this example, six is the positive side count. So, how many tiles go along one side? Six tiles on every side. So √36 = 6.