Mth158
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I am very confused on the regrouping and the handling of negative exponents in the R2 assignments, the extra Problem (3^-2*5^3)/(3^2*5)and the other problems dealing with changing negative exponents to positive.
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a^-b = 1 / a.
So a^-b in the numerator becomes 1 / a^b, which places the factor a^b in the denominator.
For example the 3^-2 in the numerator means 1 / 3^2, so you get a 3^2 (in addition to the original 3^2) in the denominator.
If you had a negative exponent in the denominator then you would have
1 / a^(-b),
which means 1 / (1 / a^b). This means
1 divided by (1 / a^b), which is the same as 1 * (a^b / 1) = a^b.
So number raised to a negative exponent in the denominator can be replaced by the same number raised to the positive exponent in the numerator.
Feel free to submit more examples, along with the details of what you do and do not understand.