Exponents Individual Review

In this post, I will be explaining the difference between negative exponents with brackets and negative exponents without brackets.

For example, here is the exponent , which is 4 to the power of 4. If the exponent does not have any brackets as shown here, then the full equation would be -4 * 4 * 4 * 4, which would make the answer a negative all the time. However, if the equation was written with brackets like this , then the equation would be (-4) * (-4) * (-4) * (-4), which would turn the answer into a positive.

A word problem example would be…

A terrible virus is killing white blood cells. The exponent is 1 and goes up by one every hour. Let’s say its been 4 hours.

result = r

cells = w

r = w(1/4)^4

let’s say the starting amount is 10000

r=10000(1/4)^4

r = 10000 (1/4) * (1/4) * (1/4) * (1/4)

10000/256 = 39 blood cells left after 4 hours