Question

What does a 3 in front of a square root mean?

Answer 1

3 in this case would be your "index of the root;" please do not use the term "square root" in this case.

Note:  2^3 = 8 is a perfect cube.

Radical operator with index 3   of   8 would thus result in the cube root, 2.

∛8 = 2,

∛64 = 4, 
and so on.

∛x is called "the cube root of x."

Answer 2

The 3 goes with the square root you don’t need to multiply or anything like that. If you need to simply for example 3 square root of 20 which is when 3 is outside the square root sign. The 20 will be separated with 4*5 in the square root and then you will square root the 4 leaving the 5 in and bringing 2 out. Now you can’t just bring it out and forget about the 3 outside you need to multiply that 2 and 3 and you get 6! So you final answer is 6 square root 5. Hope this helps reply if you have a question!