Question

Can somebody please explain this to me?.
How do you evaluate a^n if both a and n are positive integers? Does multiplying a by itself n times make sense if n is a negative integer? What do we do when n is negative? Why?

Answer 1

@jim_thompson5910

Answer 2

hes very good.

Answer 3

" How do you evaluate a^n if both a and n are positive integers?"

you just multiply 'a' by itself n times

example

7^3 = 7*7*7 = 343

we multiply 7 by itself 3 times

Answer 4

it doesn't make sense if n is negative, but you can easily fix that using the rule

\[\Large x^{-k} = \frac{1}{x^k}\]

example

\[\Large 7^{-3} = \frac{1}{7^3}\]