Here is a snippet for fast square root but it c++ code and it uses a union.

Is this possible with java/processing?

1. inline float fastSqrt_2(const float x)  
   	{
   		union
   		{
   			int i;
   			float x;
   		} u;
   
   		u.x = x;
   		u.i = (1<<29) + (u.i >> 1) - (1<<22); 
   		return u.x;
   	}