Question

Please help!

Solve for m
m^-5=1/32

Answer 1

'm' is to the -5th power, do you know what to do to get rid of that exponent of -5?

Answer 2

\(\sf x^{-a} = \dfrac{1}{x^a}\)

Answer 3

Can you change \(\sf m^{-5}\) into that form?

Answer 4

No, i dont know, normally what i do is just solve it in my head with the "guess and test" method but i think that m=2 but im not sure

Answer 5

Yes..2 is correct.

Answer 6

Here's another way to do it.

\(\sf m^{-5} \rightarrow \dfrac{1}{m^5}= \dfrac{1}{32}\)

Cross multiply:

\(\sf \dfrac{1}{m^5}\nearrow \dfrac{1}{32}\)
\(\sf \dfrac{1}{m^5}\searrow \dfrac{1}{32}\)

\(\sf m^5 = 32\)

To undo the exponent of 5, remember that \(\sf \sqrt{x^2} = x\).
So find the 5th root of both sides.

\(\sf \sqrt[5]{m^5} = \sqrt[5]{32}\)

\(\sf m = \sqrt[5]{32}\)

\(\sf m = 2\)

Answer 7

Get it?

Answer 8

The opposite of squaring is finding the square root, so the opposite of an exponent of 5 is finding the 5th root.

Answer 9

Guess-and-check is also an easy way to solve this problem.

Answer 10

Ohh, that makes more sense, i dont really know why this problem is on my test, we havent been doing things with squaring but oh well :) thank you