eli5: Why is x^0=1?

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I’m confused, shouldn’t it be 0?

In: Mathematics

8 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

You basically follow the pattern:

>x^(n+1) = x * x^n

or the other way around

>x^(n) = x^(x+1)/ x

Now if you plug in the examples

>x^1 = x * x^0

as x^1 = x therefore x^0 must be 1. Or even more intuitively for the other example:

>x^0 = x^1/x

well x^1 = x and x/x = 1 so x^0 is equal to 1

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