what is 10 to the negative third power?

[ccharles000]

I really need to go over this stuff.

[Strong Atheist]

1. 0.001 nt.

[ccharles000]

3. can you please explain?

[Strong Atheist]

6. Do my best. There are at least three ways to explain it, the easier way to

think of it invovles place value. When you have positive exponents, you are moving the decimal to add zero's after the one, like so:

10^1 = 10

10^2 = 100

10^3 = 1,000

10^4 = 10,000

and so on. There is a zero added for each exponent. Powers are nothing more than multiplying the base (in this case 10) by it self that many times. So,

10^2 = 10*10 = 100

10^3 = 10*10*10 = 1,000

and so on.


Now if we reverse it, so to speak, we get:

10^3 = 1,000

10^2 = 100

10^1 = 10

10^0 = 1 by definition; everything except 0 to the ^1 = one.

10^-1 = 0.1

10^-2 = 0.01

10^-3 = 0.001


We are shifting the decimal point in all of these examples; to the right for positives, to the left for negatives. Now, what is really happening with the negative powers is that you are multiplying the base with a fraction of itself (or, you are dividing instead of multiplying, which is what fractions are; division)

So

10^0 = 10* (1/10) = 1

10^-1 = 10* (1/100) = 0.1

10^-2 = 10* (1/1,000) = 0.01

10^-3 = 10* (1/10,000) = 0.001

and so on. I would think of it as shifting the decimal, for powers of ten...

[ccharles000]

7. thanks

[Strong Atheist]

8. Welcome. nt.

[rug]

2. My current credt card rate.

[LeftyFingerPop]

4. Try this charles...

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=ten+to+the+negative+third+power&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&fp=KxYPMM6r3XA

[Tangerine LaBamba]

5. Here ya go .........

http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/sets/select/dm_neg_exponents.html