why does 0 to the power of 0 equal 1?

Question

why does 0 to the power of 0 equal 1?

In: 97

Answer 1

My high school algebra teacher explained it in a stunningly simple way:

Raising a number to the nth power means multiplying it n times, and multiplying anything by 1 doesn’t change it.

So for example, 2^3 = 2 x 2 x 2, which is the same as 2 x 2 x 2 x 1.

If you take 2 to the power of 0 there are no 2s, there’s just the 1 by itself.