How Do You Work With Negative Bases In Exponential Powers?
You first need to see that there is a difference between negative eight to the third and negative eight to the third. This may sound strange, but the difference is whether you have the negative eight in parentheses or not. If the negative eight is in parentheses, then you have a situation where the negative eight is being repeated however many times are indicated with the exponent. If the exponent is 4, then you will have negative eight times itself four times. This will yield a positive number. If the negative eight is not in parentheses, then you have to think of the problem in a different way. The negative sigh in front of the eight should now be though of “the opposite”. So you would now read this as “the opposite of eight to the fourth power”. This will yield a negative result.
