Question

It would take ___ steps to arrive at 0 from 256 to find its square root by repeated subtraction of odd numbers.

Answer 1

The square root of a number can be found by repeatedly subtracting odd integers from the number starting from 1.
So in this case,
256- 1-3-5-7-9-11-13-15-17-19-21-23-25-27-29-31 = 0.
(16 steps, hence square root of 256 is 16.)