negative numbers with negative exponents

At which point are you stuck? Simplifying the (-2)<sup>-5</sup>, or the division?

Please reply showing your steps, so we can see wherein the difficulty lies.

Thank you.

Eliz.
 
Got it

I guess simplifying the (-2)^-5

I thought if I inverted -2 that would get rid of the negative on the 5

(-1/2)^5 which equals -1/32

OMG..... I see now. I'm not even sure what I was doing before

32(-1/32)=-1

Well maby you can point me in the direction of writing the problem the way you did in the responce (with the little negative five exponent)

Thank you helping me figure it out myself.
 
Hello, rjefferey!

Yes, you nailed it!


We have: \(\displaystyle \,32(-2)^{-5}\)

which becomes: \(\displaystyle \,32\cdot\frac{1}{(-2)^5}\) . . . like you said

Then we have: \(\displaystyle \,32\left(-\frac{1}{32}\right) \;= \;-1\)
 
Re: Got it

rjefferey said:
maby you can point me in the direcrion of writing the problem the way you did in the responce (with the little negative five exponent)
Click to expand...
You can see the HTML coding by clicking "quote" (like as if you were going to quote my message in your post). You'll see that, to superscript, you just use the "<sup>" and "</sup>" tags.

Eliz.
 
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