Hobbies And Interests
Identification
One mathematical notation is the exponent. It is the extra small number that is placed above and to the right of another number that is called the base. The value of the base and the exponent is calculated by multiplying the base by itself as many times as is indicated by the exponent.
Function
When you are told to raise a number "to the power of" another number as in six to the power of four, the statement means that the number, six, is the base and four is the exponent. So, the value of six to the power of four is 6 x 6 x 6 x 6 = 1,296. Six to the fourth power means the same thing.
Types
Anything that is squared involves an exponent of two. Five squared tells you that the base is five and the exponent is two. So, five squared equals 5 x 5 = 25. If a number is cubed, the exponent is three. Whenever the exponent is one, the value of the expression equals the base. For example, nine to the power of one equals nine. However, if the exponent is zero, the value of the expression always equals one no matter what the base is.
Features
Suppose that you need to multiply three to the fourth power by three to the fifth power. Both factors in the multiplication problem have the same base, three. This means that a shortcut to finding the product is to add the exponents. So the product is equal to three to the ninth power. This rule only applies when the factors have the same bases.
Expert Insight
Scientific notation uses exponents to cope with very large numbers. The number 57,439,000 can be expressed using scientific notation as 5.7439 times 10 to the power of eight. Whenever 10 is the base, the exponent indicates how many zeros to place to the left of the decimal point.