What is an Exponent?

An exponent is defined as how many times the number is multiplied by itself.

For example, 5 × 5 × 5 can be written as 5³ using exponent. Where in the example, 3 is the exponent which is known as “power” showing how many times the number is being multiplied and 5 is the “base”.

Power can be defined as an expression which shows the repeated multiplication of the number or base.

Example:

4⁵ = 4 × 4 × 4 × 4 × 4 = 1024

9² = 9 × 9 = 81

7³ = 7 × 7 × 7 = 343

Negative Exponent

A negative exponent on a number shows that how many times to divide 1 by the number.

Example:

5¯² = 1 / (5 × 5) = 0.04

2¯⁵ = 1/ (2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2) = 0.03125