Hi! I hope my question is understandable. This is something I never quite understood.
Why is it that when you put the negative unit in the exponent that it can be translated into a fraction?
(I hope this makes sense! English is not my first language!)
Thanks in advance for the answers!
In: Mathematics
If I’m not mistaken you’ve gotten the rule wrong.
4^-s = 1/4^s not 1/4s
So exponential are the base multiplied by itself so 4^3 = 4 *4 *4
If you then reduce the power by 1 you are basically dividing by the base.
4^2 = 4 *4 which is the same as (4^3 ) /4 which equals 4 *4 *4 /4
So 4^1 = 4 therefore 4^0 = (4)/4 =1
If you keep reducing the power you get 4^-1 = (4^0 )/4 which is 1/4
Then 4^-2 = (4^-1 )/4 which equals (1/4)/4 or 1/4^2
……4^-s = 1/4^s
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