Mathematical Fallacy - Multivalued Functions

Multivalued Functions

Many functions do not have a unique inverse. For instance squaring a number gives a unique value, but there are two possible square roots of a positive number. The square root is multivalued. One value can be chosen by convention as the principal value, in the case of the square root the non-negative value is the principal value, but there is no guarantee that the square root function given by this principal value of the square of a number will be equal to the original number, e.g. the square root of the square of −2 is 2.

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