Exponents Discovery

Monday, October 07, 2013 9:01 AM

Part: 1
1) I learned that when working with exponents sometimes you would do more than one operation. If you had 10 -2 you would do 1/10 * 1/10 which would equal 0.01. I also learned that you could have exponents while working with variable. You could have 10x 2 which could equal 10xx. When your working with a variable it is called working with coefficients. 2) What is a Base? A base is the bottom number that you see when you are working with exponents that is the factor being multiplied. For example in the exponent 35 the base number would be 3.

3) What is a Power? A power is the indicated repeated multiplication of a base number. For example in the exponent 5 4 the power is the 4 which is telling you to multiply 5 four times. 4) What does a Base and Power tell you to do? The power tells how many times to multiply or divide the base by. For example if you had the exponent 7 3, the power which is 3 would tell you to multiply the base, 7 three times. 5) What is a Power a shortcut to? A power is a shortcut to an equation. Instead of writing out a whole equation it is a shortcut so you don't have to write out a lot. For an example a shortcut to 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 would be 5 3.
6) How could you use geometry to describe squaring or cubing a number? You could use geometry to describe squaring or cubing a number by using different shapes. You could show it out by having 5 triangles multiplied by each other with 2 triangles in each group showing that you are multiplying 2 triangles, 5 times.

Part: 2

Base

Exponent Meaning

Value

2
2 2 2

4
3 2 1

2*2*2*2 2*2*2 2*2 2

16 8 4 2

Introduction to Exponents Page 1

2 2

0 -1

1
1/2

1
1/2

2
2 2

-2
-3 -4

1/2 *1/2 1/2*1/2* 1/2

1/2*1/2* 1/2*1/2

1/4 1/8
1/16

Part: 3 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 1x + 1x = 2x 1x - 1x = 0 1x * 1x = x2 1x / 1x = 1x 1x *1x*1x= x3 1x *1x*1x*1x*1x= x5 X2 * x = x 3 X 2 * x 3 = x5 X4 * x6 = x10 When you multiply same bases the base of your answer would be the base of your two factors and the exponent would be adding the powers of the two. For example if you had x 7 * x2 you would keep the two bases which would be x and add the two exponents, so the answer would be x9.
X 4 * x2 = x6 X 5 / x 3 = x2 X6 / x = x 5 When you divide same bases the base of your answer would always be the same as your two factors bases and the exponent would be the amount of x's that the two exponents dont have in common. So, in other words the exponent would be the first exponent subtracted by the second one. For example in the problem x7 / x3 you would keep the bases and subtract the exponents so the answer would be x4.

1) 2) 3) 4)

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6)

X 3 * x 3 = x6 X 4 * x4 = x8 X 2 * x2 * x2 = x6 X3 * x4 = x12 X2 * x5 = x10 When you raise a base with a exponent by a exponent you are really just multiplying the two. You would keep the base and multiply the exponent. For example if you had x2 raised to the third power your answer would be x 6.

Introduction to Exponents Page 2