Raise both sides to the reciprocal of power, which is the power in order to cancel the power: To remove the parentheses on the left, multiply the exponents: Multiply and get just 1 Add 9 to both sides: If you like you can write the fractional exponent as a root with index the same as the denominator and the radicand as the base with the exponent the same as the numerator: Then you can write the 33 as 27: Edwin