how many gigabytes are in a terabyte recall that a gigabyte is 2^30 bytes and a terabyte is 2^40 bytes. Divide the powers to find the answer.

Question

hartnn · Answer

so what u get by 
$\large \dfrac{2^{40}}{2^{30}}=...?$

hartnn · Answer

use, $\huge \dfrac{x^m}{x^n}=x^{m-n}$

anonymous · Answer

Well since that bases are the same couldnt i just divide the exponents?

goldphenoix · Answer

You forgot the law of exponent.
When you are dividing 2 numbers with the same base, then the base stays the same, but the exponent would be subtracted from the numerator and the denominator.

So you can't divide the exponents. Since subtracting and dividing are different.

anonymous · Answer

So you would subtract them?

goldphenoix · Answer

Yes, like hartnn said.

anonymous · Answer

So i have 2^30 - 2^40 = 2^10 so there are 2^10 gigabytes in a terabyte?

goldphenoix · Answer

For example, if we have 10^3 /10^2.
Then in expanded form, it would look like:

$$\large \large \frac{ 10 \times 10 \times 10 \times 10  }{ 10 \times 10  } = 10^2 = 100$$

goldphenoix · Answer

10^4 / 10^2, my bad. Then it would look like 10^2.

hartnn · Answer

yes, the answer seems correct :)
but it is $\dfrac{2^{40}}{2^{30}}=2^{40-30}=2^{10}$