Have you ever heard of powers? Do you know what they are and what they’re for?
In this week’s post, we are going to discover what a power is and why we use them.
Powers are an abbreviated way of writing a number that’s formed by multiplying a number by itself various times. They are very useful for simplifying multiplications that repeat a certain number.
Powers consist of a base and an exponent. The base is the number that is multiplied various times and the exponent is the number of times that the base is multiplied.
What number is multiplied? THE BASE.
How many times is the number multiplied? THE EXPONENT.
Powers are written as such: the base number is written normally and the power number is written on the upper-right-hand side in a smaller text.
Powers example
5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5
What number is being multiplied? 5 → BASE
How many times is the number being multiplied? 7 → EXPONENT
The number would be expressed as: 
Let’s look at another example.
3 x 3 x 3 x 3
What number is being multiplied? 3 → BASE
How many times is the number being multiplied? 4 → EXPONENT
3 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 3 4
Want more examples? You can review a previous post about Powers in Math.
And if you want to learn much more math, register in Smartick free trial!
Learn More:
- Learn about the Importance of the Parentheses in Powers
- Powers in Math
- Learn More about Exponents
- Do You Want to Learn the Properties of Powers?
- Learn Everything About the Properties of Powers
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