Square root algorithm

Coach Drew Dunlap taught me this algorithm a long time ago in a high school algebra class, and I've always regretted that I'd forgotten it and could never find an example in any math books. I'm studying for my General exam next weekend and needed to take the square root of something and didn't have a calculator handy, and won't have one for the test, even though it's allowed -- the batteries are dead in the old TI I've got, and I doubt they'd let me use a laptop.

Anyway, I google'd for it and found several sites that demonstrated it, so now I can do it again. Basically, you group the numbers in pairs starting from the right, then work from the left and find the square. Obviously, the first pair might be a single digit, or 0(something). I'm not going to try to replicate it here, but if you search for "square root algorithm" you'll get a bunch of hits.

Coach Dunlap was a great coach, he coached track (I was swimmer not a runner at the time), but was an even better teacher. I took 2 full years of mathematics my junior year, all with him, and it changed my life. Turned out to be the only thing in high school that challenged and excited me, other than sports. Once I learned to read proficiently -- years later while deployed on board ship with nothing else to do -- I got more interested in history and literature, but still love math.

It's probably still my best subject, even though my degree is in history with a minor in English; I could have minored in math as well, but Dr. Clinton Machann was teaching an English course the summer I was graduated, so I took it instead of another math course. I'd had him for two other courses and really like him. Once before I went on active duty, and once after I got out. It wasn't until the first class that I realized the "romantics" was all poetry. I struggled through it and actually liked some of it. At least I know who those guys are, even if it's not to my taste.

Dr. Machann is also a musician and I remember mentioning that Jonathan Edwards was also the name of musician up in the north east -- I first heard his album will living in a group house in Lake Placid during the Winter Olympics in 1980. He was familiar with him and mentioned several of his songs. The only ones I could remember at the time where Shanty and Sunshine. I was a few years older than the other kids in the class -- they were all freshman, and I was probably a junior, or should have been, at the time. Anyway, they all looked at me like I was from outer space after that.

At some point during the semester, Dr. Machann announced to the class that the English department had a band and that they would be playing the next weekend at Grins Beer Garden (I think that was the name), so I took my girl friend Nancy to see them. I was the only one from the class who came and Nancy and I were practically the only ones there, but they were pretty good and it was fun. Nancy liked them too.

My only other story about Dr. Machann, was when I got out of the Corps and went back to school, I just happened to take another class with him, probably Western Literature or something like that. One day, he was talking about Jane Austin and asked the class if anyone had ever read anything by her. I, along with half a dozen other students raised my hand, and he asked us one by one what we'd read.

The girl he called on right before me mentioned that she'd read Pride and Prejudice, and he said it was a good example of English mannerism and that the girls in the class would probably really like it. Then he asked me what I'd read, and when I said Pride and Prejudice too. He laughed and said, well it looks like Marines would probably like it as well. This was in the late 80's and I was a good 10 years older than everyone in the class, so again, they all looked at me somewhat strangely.

So, although I got a slow start, I'm one of those weird life-long learners who doesn't own a tv, listens to NPR, and reads all the time. And some of my best friends are former teachers or mentors whom I've known for over 20 to 30 years. They might even read this...