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Laws of Indices

Sometimes called the "Laws of Exponents" (also called "Rules of Exponents") come from three ideas:

The exponent says how many times to use the number in a multiplication.
   
negative exponent means divide, because the opposite of multiplying is dividing
   
A fractional exponent like 1/n means to take the nth root:

 

Laws of Exponents

Here are the Laws (for more detailed explanations follow this link to the maths is fun site):

Law Example
x1 = x 61 = 6
x0 = 1 70 = 1
x-1 = 1/x 4-1 = 1/4
xmxn = xm+n x2x3 = x2+3 = x5
xm/xn = xm-n x6/x2 = x6-2 = x4
(xm)n = xmn (x2)3 = x2×3 = x6
(xy)n = xnyn (xy)3 = x3y3
(x/y)n = xn/yn (x/y)2 = x2 / y2
x-n = 1/xn x-3 = 1/x3
And the law about Fractional Exponents:
z z