# Exponent Rules

So I will get back to roots of numbers, but let’s first look at the rules for combining exponents.

Now an integer exponent means that you are multiplying the base together as many times as the exponent indicates. That is,

${3}^{5}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}{3}$.

The exponent “5” says to multiply the base “3” five times. This immediately suggests our first rule of exponents:

${x}^{m}{x}^{n}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{x}^{{m}{+}{n}}$

That is, when the same base with exponents are multiplied together, you can simplify this by adding the exponents. You can readily see this with the example above:

${3}^{2}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}{3}^{3}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{(}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}{3}{)}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}{(}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}{3}{)}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{3}^{{2}{+}{3}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{3}^{5}$

So this rule makes sense. Now let’s look at another example to motivate the next exponent rule:

$\frac{{3}^{3}}{{3}^{2}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}\frac{\rlap{/}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}\rlap{/}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}{3}}{\rlap{/}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}\rlap{/}{3}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}\frac{3}{1}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{3}^{1}$

Now you would normally leave out the exponent “1” in the final answer but I left it there so you can see the following rule in action:

$\frac{{x}^{m}}{{x}^{n}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{x}^{{m}{-}{n}}$

Can you see how this rule works for the last example? By the way, these rules work whether or not the base is a known number or not.

${x}^{13}{x}^{7}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{x}^{20}{,}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\frac{{x}^{13}}{{x}^{7}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{x}^{6}$

Now so far, I have limited myself to using positive integers as the exponents. It turns out that any number can be used as an exponent but it is not clear what a negative or non-integer exponent means. Let’s first look at negative integer exponents.

In the division example above with the base “3”, I specifically put the “3” with the larger exponent in the numerator. What if I reversed these:

$\frac{{3}^{2}}{{3}^{3}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}\frac{\rlap{/}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}\rlap{/}{3}}{\rlap{/}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}\rlap{/}{3}\hspace{0.33em}\times\hspace{0.33em}{3}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}\frac{1}{3}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}\frac{1}{{3}^{1}}$

But according to the division rule of exponents:

$\frac{{3}^{2}}{{3}^{3}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{3}^{{2}{-}{3}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{3}^{{-}{1}}$

This suggests that ${3}^{{-}{1}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}\frac{1}{{3}^{1}}$ and this is correct. A negative exponent of a base means the equivalent to the same base to the positive exponent in the denominator. It actually works in the other direction as well. You can move factors between the numerator and denominator as long as you change the sign of the exponent:

$\begin{array}{l} {{x}^{{-}{6}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}\frac{1}{{x}^{6}}}\\ {\frac{{x}^{{-}{6}}\hspace{0.33em}{y}^{5}}{{z}^{{-}{7}}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}\frac{{y}^{5}{z}^{7}}{{x}^{6}}} \end{array}$

And the multiplication rule works as well:

${x}^{7}{x}^{{-}{4}}\hspace{0.33em}{=}\hspace{0.33em}{x}^{{7}{-}{4}}\hspace{0.33em}{x}^{3}$

That takes care of the numbers on the tick marks of the number line as exponents, but what about the numbers in between? That will be the topic of my next post.