# Roots and Radicals

## Introduction

Suppose a stone falls from the edge of a cliff. The number of feet the stone has dropped after  seconds can be found by multiplying 16 times the square of . But to calculate the number of seconds it would take the stone to hit the land below, we need to use a square root. In this chapter, we will introduce and apply the properties of square roots, and extend these concepts to higher order roots and rational exponents.