Squared edge lengths [duplicate]

Can I also say:

The energy is based on edge length squared.

Adjectives usually go before a noun, but maybe here 'squared' can be treated also as a verb or a postpositive adjective?

Lexico from Oxford Dictionaries describes "squared" as a postpositive adjective, i.e. an adjective that follows the noun that it modifies: "(of a linear unit of measurement) converted to a unit of area equal to a square whose side is of the unit specified.".

The OED's entry is older; it has squared as an adjective with meanings including (#2) "Multiplied by itself. Also figurative." Most of the examples precede the noun being modified (e.g. "squared number", "squared term") but there is also a postpositive example in a metaphorical sense "spider squared" meaning spider to an extreme degree (more scary and "spidery" than most spiders).

English has many adjectives that are commonly used postnominally/postpositively (Wikipedia), such as "redux", "galore", "incarnate", and "abreast". Of these examples "redux" and "galore" both refer to number, while the likes of "abreast" and "akimbo" refer to geometric arrangement.

Less conclusively, Wiktionary also refers to "squared" as a postpositive adjective.

Ref to OED: "square, v." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2021. Web. 31 May 2021. Tagged "This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1915; latest version published online April 2020)."

The energy is based on edge length squared.

This sounds like a a reduced relative clause...

i.e.

The energy is based on edge length (which is) squared.

This is a type of ellipsis which I think many here would call a whiz-deletion.

The rule called Whiz-Deletion by linguists (from the fact that it deletes a Wh-word plus a form of be, quite often is; a monosyllabic variant of "Wh-is deletion"), when applied to a relative clause, creates a bare verb phrase without a tensed verb, but with whatever is left after the deletion.

John Lawler on WordWizard.com

So I think "squared" in the post-nominal could be classified as a (bare) verb phrase.

In the case of (from your title)....

squared edge length

This could be read as an Adjective + Noun combination i.e. "a squared edge".

But others might read that as ...

an edge which has been squared

...which once again seems to be a reduced clause, whiz-deletion, etc. I think some linguists have pointed out that the English pre-positioning of adjectives might actually derive from that very idea. Apart from that then we have the problem of how to regard "edge" with "length"...

All of that said, the post-nominal placement reflects spoken Mathematics... which usually includes the exponent in the post-positive position. Why this is done would be an interesting question: is it based on Arabic and Greek?