Cube root of a non-perfect cube - Math, Class 7 Video Lecture

Let's see if we can find
the cube root of 3,430.
And if you're like me, it
doesn't jump out of your mind
what number times that same
number times that same number--
if you have three
of those numbers
and you were to
multiply them together--
would be equal to 3,430.
So what I'm going to do is
to try to prime factorize
this to find all the
prime factors of 3,430
and see if any of
those prime factors
show up at least three times.
And that'll help us with this.
So 3,430-- it's clearly
divisible by 5 and 2,
or it's divisible by 10.
So let's do that.
So first we can divide it by 2.
It's 2 times-- let's see.
3,430 divided by 2 is 1,715.
Then we can divide
it by 5, as well.
We can factor 1,715
into 5 and-- let
me do a little bit of long
division on the side here.
So if I have 1,715, and I'm
going to divide it by 5.
5 doesn't go into 1.
It goes into 17 three times.
3 times 5 is 15.
Subtract, you get 2, and
then you bring down a 1.
5 goes into 21 four times.
4 times 5 is 20.
Subtract.
Bring down the 5.
5 goes into 15 three times,
so it goes exactly 343 times.
So 1,715 can be factored
into 5 times 343.
Now, 343 might not
jump out at you
as a number that
is easy to factor.
It's clearly an odd number,
so it won't be divisible by 2.
Its digits add up to 10,
which is not divisible by 3.
So this isn't going
to be divisible by 3.
It's not going to
be divisible by 4,
because it's not divisible by 2.
It's not going to
be divisible by 5.
If it wasn't
divisible by 3 or 2,
it's not going to
be divisible by 6.
And now we get to 7.
Usually when you
see a nutty number
like this that
doesn't seem to be
divisible by a lot
of things, it's
always a good idea to try
things like 7, 11, 13.
Because those tend to construct
very interesting numbers.
So let's see if this
is divisible by 7.
So if I take 343 and if
I want to divide it by 7,
7 goes into 30-- it doesn't
go into 3-- 7 goes into 34
four times.
4 times 7 is 28.
Subtract, 34 minus 28 is 6.
Bring down a 3.
7 goes into 63 nine times.
9 times 7 is 63.
Subtract.
We don't have any remainder.
And I forgot to do
that last step up here.
3 times 15 is 15.
Subtract, no remainder.
It went in exactly.
So here, 343 can be
factored into 7 and 49.
And 49 might jump out at you.
It can be factored
into 7 times 7.
So this is interesting.
I can rewrite all of this
here-- the cube root of 3,430--
now as the cube
root of-- I'm just
going to write it in its
factored form-- 2 times
5 times-- I could write
7 times 7 times 7,
or I could write times
7 to the third power.
That captures these three
7's right over here.
I have three 7's, and then
I'm multiplying them together.
So that's 7 to the third power.
And from our
exponent properties,
we know that this is the
exact same thing as the cube
root of 2 times 5 times
the cube root-- so
let me do that in
that same, just so we
see what colors
we're dealing with.
So the cube root of 2 times 5,
which is the cube root of 10,
times the cube
root-- and I think
you see where this is going--
of 7 to the third power.
Keeping track of the
colors is the hard part.
And the cube root of 10,
we just leave it as 10.
We know the prime factorization
of 10 is 2 times 5,
so you're not going to just
get a very simple integer
answer here.
You would get some
decimal answer here,
but here you get a very
clear integer answer.
The cube root of 7 to
the third, well, that's
just going to be 7.
So this is just going to be 7.
So our entire thing simplifies.
This is equal to 7 times
the cube root of 10.
And this is about
as simplified as we
can get just using
hand arithmetic.
If you want to get
the exact number here,
you're probably best
off using a calculator.