Primary Mathematics/Powers, roots, and exponents

Exponents

Exponents, or powers, are a way of indicating that a quantity is to be multiplied by itself some number of times. In the expression 2⁵, 2 is called the base and 5 is called the exponent, or power. 2⁵ is shorthand for "multiply five twos together": 2⁵ = 2×2×2×2×2 = 32. Notice that the exponent tells us how many bases to multiply, not how many multiplications to perform. (In fact, the number of multiplications is one less than the number of bases.) 2⁵ is read "two raised to the fifth power" or simply "two to the fifth."

In general,

$x^{n}=\underbrace {x\cdot x\cdot x\cdot \,\,\cdots \,\,\cdot x} _{nfactors}$

where there are n x's to be multiplied.

Squaring numbers

A convenient way to note that a number is to be multiplied by itself (for example 5×5) is to say that the number is squared. To help visualize this, picture a square which is 5 units long and 5 units wide. This square will then have an area of 5×5 or 25 square units. A nice way to write "5 squared" is 5², where 5 is called the base and 2 is called the exponent.

Area of five rows by five columns = 5 × 5 = 5² = 25.

Table of perfect squares

You may want to memorize some perfect square numbers:

Square	Result
0²	0
1²	1
2²	4
3²	9
4²	16
5²	25
6²	36
7²	49
8²	64
9²	81
10²	100
11²	121
12²	144
13²	169
14²	196
15²	225
16²	256
17²	289
18²	324
19²	361
20²	400
21²	441
22²	484
23²	529
24²	576
25²	625
26²	676
27²	729
28²	784
29²	841
30²	900

Cubing numbers

Similarly, a convenient way to note that a number is to be multiplied by itself and then itself again (for example 5×5×5) is to say that the number is cubed. To help visualize this, picture a cube which is 5 units long, 5 units wide, and 5 units high. This cube will then have a volume of 5×5×5 or 125 cubic units. A nice way to write "5 cubed" is 5³, where 5 is called the base and 3 is called the exponent.

Volume of a cube with height, width, and length of five = 5 × 5 × 5 = 5³ = 125.

Table of perfect cube numbers

You may want to memorize some perfect cube numbers:

Cube	Result
0³	0
1³	1
2³	8
3³	27
4³	64
5³	125
6³	216
7³	343
8³	512
9³	729
10³	1000

Higher powers

Numbers higher than three may also be used as exponents, although there is no common term for numbers raised to a fourth power or higher. For example, 5⁴ = 5×5×5×5 = 625.

Table of higher powers

A table of xⁿ.
Bases are on the left, exponents are across the top:
x^1/6	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12...
0	?	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
2	1	2	4	8	16	32	64	128	256	512	1024	2048	4096	2ⁿ
3	1	3	9	27	81	243	729	2187	6561	19683	59049			3ⁿ
4	1	4	16	64	256	1024	4096	16384	65536	262144	1048576			4ⁿ
5	1	5	25	125	625	3125	15625	78125	390625	1953125	9765625			5ⁿ
6	1	6	36	216	1296	7776	46656	279936	1679616	10077696	60466176			6ⁿ
7	1	7	49	343	2401	16807	117649	823543	5764801	40353607	282475249			7ⁿ
8	1	8	64	512	4096	32768	262144	2097152	16777216	134217728	1073741824			8ⁿ
9	1	9	81	729	6561	59049	531441	4782969	43046721	387420489	3486784401			9ⁿ
10	1	10	100	1000	10000	100000	1000000	10000000	100000000	1000000000	10000000000			10ⁿ
11	1	11	121	1331	14641	161051	1771561	19487171	214358881	2357947691	25937424601			11ⁿ
12	1	12	144	1728	20736	248832	2985984	35831808	429981696	5159780352	61917364224			12ⁿ
13	1	13	169	2197	28561	371293	4826809	62748517	815730721	10604499373	137858491849			13ⁿ
14	1	14	196	2744	38416	537824	7529536	105413504	1475789056	20661046784	289254654976			14ⁿ
15	1	15	225	3375	50625	759375	11390625	170859375	2562890625	38443359375	576650390625			15ⁿ
16	1	16	256	4096	65536	1048576	16777216	268435456	4294967296	68719476736	1099511627776			16ⁿ	...

x	1	x	x²	x³	x⁴	x⁵	x⁶	x⁷	x⁸	x⁹	x¹⁰	x¹¹	x¹²

Note: 0⁰ is undefined.

Properties of Exponents

There are several properties of exponents which are frequently used to manipulate and simplify algebraic and arithmetic expressions.

${\begin{aligned}x^{m}x^{n}&=x^{m+n}\\{\dfrac {x^{m}}{x^{n}}}&=x^{m-n}\\(xy)^{n}&=x^{n}y^{n}\\\left({\dfrac {x}{y}}\right)^{n}&={\dfrac {x^{n}}{y^{n}}}\\(x^{m})^{n}&=x^{mn}\end{aligned}}$

The first, third, and fifth properties may be extended to several factors, as follows:

${\begin{aligned}x^{m_{1}}x^{m_{2}}x^{m_{3}}\cdots x^{m_{n}}&=x^{m_{1}+m_{2}+m_{3}+\,\cdots \,+m_{n}}\\(x_{1}x_{2}x_{3}\cdots x_{n})^{m}&=x_{1}^{m}x_{2}^{m}x_{3}^{m}\cdots x_{n}^{m}\\(\cdots (((x^{m_{1}})^{m_{2}})^{m_{3}})\cdots )^{m_{n}}&=x^{m_{1}m_{2}m_{3}\cdots \,m_{n}}\end{aligned}}$

Bases and exponents of one and zero

Any number raised to an exponent of one equals itself. So, for example, 5¹ = 5.

Any non-zero number raised to an exponent of zero equals one. So, for example, 5⁰ = 1.

Zero raised to any positive exponent is still zero. So, for example, 0⁵ = 0.

One raised to any exponent is still one. So, for example, 1⁵ = 1.

Zero raised to an exponent of zero is not defined.

Negative and noninteger powers

A base may also be raised to a negative, fractional, or decimal power. These will be covered later in this lesson

Roots

Roots are the inverse operation of powers:

Square root

The inverse operation of squaring a number is taking the square root of that number. So, for example, the square root of 25 is the number which must be multiplied by itself to equal 25. In this case, the answer is 5. There are two types of notation used here:

${\sqrt {25}}=25^{1/2}=5$

Note, however, that most square roots don't yield integers, and many don't even produce rational numbers.

Manually finding a square root

One method for manually taking square roots is to repeatedly do long division. Let's take the square root of 10 in this example. We would start by estimating the answer. Since 3² = 9 and 4² = 16, we know the answer lies between 3 and 4. Furthermore, since 10 is only one away from 9, but is 6 away from 16, we could estimate that the answer is one-seventh of the way between 3 and 4. This won't give an exact answer, and a seventh is ugly to work with, so let's use a fifth, instead. This gives us 3 1/5 or 3.2 as a starting estimate.

Now do long division to divide 10 by 3.2. We get 3.125. The average of 3.2 and 3.125 is (3.2 + 3.125)/2 = 6.325/2 = 3.1625, so that will be our next estimate.

Now do long division to divide 10 by 3.1625. We get 3.162055... (we didn't really need to go more than one digit beyond the number of decimal places we started with). The average of 3.1625 and 3.1621 is 3.1623, so that will be our next estimate.

Now do long division to divide 10 by 3.1623. We get 3.162255...

So, this method can be repeated to get the desired level of accuracy. The actual square root of 10 is 3.16227766...

Note that calculators or computers are used for most square root calculations, but knowing how to manually calculate a square root can be quite useful when no calculator is available.

If you would like to try this method yourself, try finding the square root of 7.

Cube root

The inverse operation of cubing a number is taking the cube root of that number. So, for example, the cube root of 125 is the number which must be multiplied by itself and then multiplied by itself again to equal 125. In this case, the answer is 5. There are two types of notation used here:

${\sqrt[{3}]{125}}=125^{1/3}=5$

Note, however, that most cube roots don't yield integers, and many don't even produce rational numbers.

Higher roots

Numbers higher than three may also be used as roots, although there is no common term for fourth roots or higher. For example:

${\sqrt[{4}]{625}}=625^{1/4}=5$

Note, however, that most higher roots don't yield integers, and many don't even produce rational numbers.

Combining powers and roots

The unit fraction notation used for roots previously may have given you the idea that roots are really the same as powers, only with a unit fraction (one over some number) instead of an integer as the exponent. Thus, the fractional notation is actually preferred in higher mathematics, although the root symbol is still used occasionally, especially for square roots.

Fractions as exponents

Other (non-unit) fractions may also be used as exponents. In this case, the base number may be raised to the power of the numerator (top number in the fraction) then the denominator (bottom number) may be used to take the root. For example:

$8^{2/3}={\sqrt[{3}]{8^{2}}}={\sqrt[{3}]{64}}=4$

Alternatively, you can take the root first and then apply the power:

$8^{2/3}=({\sqrt[{3}]{8}})^{2}=2^{2}=4$

Decimal exponents

Any fractional exponent can also be expressed as a decimal exponent. For example, a square root may also be written as:

$25^{1/2}=25^{0.5}=5\;$

Also, decimals which can't be expressed as a fraction (irrational numbers) may be used as exponents:

$5^{3.1415926...}=156.99...\;$

Such problems aren't easy to solve by hand using basic math skills, but the answer can be estimated manually. In this case, since 3.1415926 is between 3 and 4 (and considerable closer to 3), we know that the answer will be between 5^3 (or 125) and 5^4 (or 625), and considerable closer to 125.

Negative exponents

A negative exponent simply means you take the reciprocal (one over the number) of the base first, then apply the exponent:

$25^{-0.5}=1/25^{0.5}=1/5\;$

Alternatively, you can first apply the exponent (ignoring the sign), then take the reciprocal:

$25^{-0.5}=5^{-1}=1/5\;$

Fractions as bases

When a fraction is raised to an exponent, both the numerator and denominator are raised to that exponent:

$(5/6)^{2}=5^{2}/6^{2}=25/36\;$

Fractions may also be used for both the base and exponent:

$(25/36)^{1/2}=25^{1/2}/36^{1/2}=5/6\;$

In addition, negative fractional exponents may be used, taking the reciprocal of the base, as always, to find the solution:

$(25/36)^{-1/2}=(36/25)^{1/2}=36^{1/2}/25^{1/2}=6/5\;$

Negative bases

Negative bases can be handled normally for integer powers:

$(-5)^{2}=(-5)\times (-5)=25\;$

$(-5)^{3}=(-5)\times (-5)\times (-5)=-125\;$

$(-5)^{4}=(-5)\times (-5)\times (-5)\times (-5)=625\;$

$(-5)^{5}=(-5)\times (-5)\times (-5)\times (-5)\times (-5)=-3125\;$

Note that negative bases raised to even powers produce positive results, while negative bases raised to odd powers produce negative results.

Be careful with negative signs. Since -5 = -1×5, there is a difference between $-5^{2}$ and $(-5)^{2}$ . The former means the negative of 5 times 5, whereas the latter
means -5 squared. In other words,

$-5^{2}=-1\times 5^{2}=-1\times (5\times 5)=-1\times 25=-25$

but

$(-5)^{2}=(-5)\times (-5)=25$

Roots and fractional/decimal powers are a bit trickier. Odd roots work out fine:

$(-125)^{1/3}=-5\;$

Even roots, however, have no real solution:

$(-25)^{1/2}=?\;$

$(-625)^{1/4}=?\;$

Note that there is no real number, when multiplied by itself, which will produce -25, because 5×5 = 25 and -5×-5 = 25. There is actually a solution, called an imaginary number, but that won't be discussed until later lessons.

Principal root

Note that, since both 5×5 = 25 and -5×-5 = 25, when we are asked to take the square root of 25 there are, in fact, two valid answers, 5 and -5. Actually, any even root of a positive number will have two solutions, with one being the negative of the other. This may seem unusual, but, in higher mathematics, problems often have multiple solutions.

However, for many problems, only the positive value seems to physically work. For example, if we are asked to figure the length of the sides of a square yard which has an area of 25 square units, only 5 units on a side works. If we said "each side can also have a length of -5 units", that doesn't make any sense. For this reason, the positive solution is called the principal root, and, depending on the question, may be the only desired answer. In cases where either answer is valid, it is sometimes written as ±5 (read as "plus or minus five"). However, the mathematical definition of the square root of x squared is the absolute value of x. Thus, square roots equations do not have two answers but two numbers can square to equal the same rational number.

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