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1 and -1 to different powers

Different exponents affect the value of a number: when raised to the power of zero, any number equals one; when raised to an even power, negative numbers yield positive results; and when raised to an odd power, negative numbers yield negative results. Created by Sal Khan.

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  • blobby green style avatar for user nightfall
    plz try to explain it as if you were explaining this to a small kid plz that might help me
    (10 votes)
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    • female robot ada style avatar for user HARMANPREET
      I think Sal making the video longer is what's confusing us! But it's actually pretty simple! One to the power of ANY NUMBER will always be one because you just keep on doing 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 etc. When you do -1 to the power of an ODD number, the answer is always -1, but when you do -1 to the power of an even number, the result is always just 1! :) Let me know if this helps!
      (29 votes)
  • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Geovany Diaz
    At how does 1^0 equal 1?
    (15 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user HorseArcher
    Is zero an even or odd power?
    (4 votes)
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  • starky sapling style avatar for user Max Rachman
    Wait if he did 2^4 it also means 2x2x2x2 and so if that is it why is there to put a 1 it is just going to be the same answer
    (5 votes)
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    • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Leonardo Padro
      There are two different ways to "think" of the calculation of the exponent.

      The first is to multiply the number by itself as many times as the exponent says to do so. Example:

      5^3 is calculated as: 5x5x5=125

      The other way to picture the calculation of an exponent is to start from the number one and then multiply as the exponent says to. Example:

      5^3 is calculated as: 1x5x5x5=125

      This doesn't impact the process much. Only if you happen to be going to the power of zero, which is why everthing to the power of zero is 1. Although both proceses are correct which one is more correct is up for debate. As such untill we get a definitive answer best to learn both ways.
      (10 votes)
  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user Milana 🤍💜
    Isn't it easier to do the math without the 1 at ?
    (6 votes)
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  • female robot grace style avatar for user Mariam Busari
    I still don't get why 2^0 = 1
    Is there any reason why you have to start with a 1 when multiplying exponents? Why not start with 2 or 10?
    (1 vote)
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    • marcimus pink style avatar for user Tyler
      I think the simplest way to understand it is this. Start by taking some powers of 2:

      2^2 = 4
      2^3 = 8
      2^4 = 16
      ...

      Notice, based on this, that it is pretty simple to go forwards from one power to the next. If you want to go from "2^2" to "2^3", just multiply by 2. For instance:

      2^2 * 2 = 2^3

      But what if we wanted to go backwards? For instance, what if we wanted to go from 2^4 backwards to 2^3? Simple: we divide.

      2^3 / 2 = 2^2

      So now, what if we wanted to find 2^0? Well, simple! Start with 2^1, and go backwards. How do we go backwards again? We divide!

      2^1 / 2 = 2^0

      And "2^1 / 2" is just 1. So that's why "1 = 2^0".


      And as for the other part of your question, the reason we start from 1 is because it makes the math work. For instance, if you said that "2^0 = 10", then "2^1" would be 10 * 2, which would be 20. And "2^3" would be "10 * 2^2", which would be 40. And if we do that, then what's the point of exponents? Exponents are supposed to be used to multiply the number by itself. But if we throw a 10 in there, then exponents are pretty useless. However, it is okay for us to multiply by 1, because multiplying by 1 does nothing; it doesn't change anything. So that's why we always start with 1.

      Anyways, I hope this helped a bit.
      (13 votes)
  • stelly green style avatar for user emileazra
    the pattern is: if its an odd number of digits, it will be negative. if its even the results will be positive. works only if there are paranthesis () these things
    (4 votes)
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    • male robot johnny style avatar for user 🅹🅾🅷🅽🅽🆈
      Yes, if the base of the exponent is negative, and the base has parenthesis, the exponent can determine whether the outcome is positive or negative.

      An odd exponent (ex -1, -3, -9) will have a negative answer, however, an even exponent will result in a positive answer.

      Note that the outcome can only be negative if one or more of the following are true:

      -The Base is Negative and the exponent is odd
      -The Exponent is Negative and odd
      (4 votes)
  • female robot ada style avatar for user 𝕴𝖟𝖟𝖞
    What if you multiply or square something by one and its a negative one would the outcome be negative
    (3 votes)
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  • scuttlebug yellow style avatar for user poodoo
    at is it just like some random person is going to walk up to us and ask 'wHaT iS oNE tO tHe onE mIllIonTHe pOWeR?!' i highly doubt it.
    (5 votes)
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  • starky tree style avatar for user vamorphion
    1,000,000 has seven digits, 999,999 has six digits.
    How is it that 1 million is an even number while 999,999 is odd? Shouldn't it be inverted or am I missing something?
    (2 votes)
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Video transcript

Let's think about exponents with ones and zeroes. So let's take the number 1, and let's raise it to the eighth power. So we've already seen that there's two ways of thinking about this. You could literally view this as taking eight 1's, and then multiplying them together. So let's do that. So you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight 1's, and then you're going to multiply them together. And if you were to do that, you would get well, 1 times 1 is 1, times 1-- it doesn't matter how many times you multiply 1 by 1. You are going to just get 1. You are just going to get 1. And you could imagine. I did it eight times. I multiplied eight 1's. But even if this was 80, or if this was 800, or if this was 8 million, if I just multiplied 1-- if I had 8 million 1's, and I multiplied them all together, it would still be equal to 1. So 1 to any power is just going to be equal to 1. And you might say, hey, what about 1 to the 0 power? Well, we've already said anything to 0 power, except for 0-- that's where we're going to-- it's actually up for debate. But anything to the 0 power is going to be equal to 1. And just as a little bit of intuition here, you could literally view this as our other definition of exponentiation, which is you start with a 1, and this number says how many times you're going to multiply that 1 times this number. So 1 times 1 zero times is just going to be 1. And that was a little bit clearer when we did it like this, where we said 2 to the, let's say, fourth power is equal to-- this was the other definition of exponentiation we had, which is you start with a 1, and then you multiply it by 2 four times, so times 2, times 2, times 2, times 2, which is equal to-- let's see, this is equal to 16. So here if you start with a 1 and then you multiply it by 1 zero times, you're still going to have that 1 right over there. And that's why anything that's not 0 to the 1 power is going to be equal to 1. Now let's try some other interesting scenarios. Let's start try some negative numbers. So let's take negative 1. And let's first raise it to the 0 power. So once again, this is just going, based on this definition, this is starting with a 1 and then multiplying it by this number 0 times. Well, that means we're just not going to multiply it by this number. So you're just going to get a 1. Let's try negative 1. Let's try negative 1 to the first power. Well, anything to the first power, you could view this-- and I like going with this definition as opposed to this one right over here. If we were to make them consistent, if you were to make this definition consistent with this, you would say hey, let's start with a 1, and then multiply it by 1 eight times. And you're still going to get a 1 right over here. But let's do this with negative 1. So we're going to start with a 1, and then we're going to multiply it by negative 1 one time-- times negative 1. And this is, of course, going to be equal to negative 1. Now let's take negative 1, and let's take it to the second power. We often say that we are squaring it when we take something to the second power. So negative 1 to the second power-- well, we could start with a 1. We could start with a 1, and then multiply it by negative 1 two times-- multiply it by negative 1 twice. And what's this going to be equal to? And once again, by our old definition, you could also just say, hey, ignoring this one, because that's not going to change the value, we took two negative 1's and we're multiplying them. Well, negative 1 times negative 1 is 1. And I think you see a pattern forming. Let's take negative 1 to the third power. What's this going to be equal to? Well, by this definition, you start with a 1, and then you multiply it by negative 1 three times, so negative 1 times negative 1 times negative 1. Or you could just think of it as you're taking three negative 1's and you're multiplying it, because this 1 doesn't change the value. And this is going to be equal to negative 1 times negative 1 is positive 1, times negative 1 is negative 1. So you see the pattern. Negative 1 to the 0 power is 1. Negative 1 to the first power is negative 1. Then you multiply it by negative 1, you're going to get positive 1. Then you multiply it by negative 1 again to get negative 1. And the pattern you might be seeing is if you take negative 1 to an odd power you're going to get negative 1. And if you take it to an even power, you're going to get 1 because a negative times a negative is going to be the positive. And you're going to have an even number of negatives, so that you're always going to have negative times negatives. So this right over here, this is even. Even is going to be positive 1. And then you could see that if you went to negative 1 to the fourth power. Negative 1 the fourth power? Well, you could start with a 1 and then multiply it by negative 1 four times, so a negative 1 times negative 1, times negative 1, times negative 1, which is just going to be equal to positive 1. So if someone were to ask you-- we already established that if someone were to take 1 to the, I don't know, 1 millionth power, this is just going to be equal to 1. If someone told you let's take negative 1 and raise it to the 1 millionth power, well, 1 million is an even number, so this is still going to be equal to positive 1. But if you took negative 1 to the 999,999th power, this is an odd number. So this is going to be equal to negative 1.