Question 21897: the question is : do you agree with the following statment, if not, why?
3^4= (-3)^4
to me it seems a simple yes, but someone else says that since the power of four is on the outside of the parenthesis then the power takes effect on a 1 after the (-3). this would simplify the equation to 81= -3
if that is true then all questions such as (xy)^4 would equal xy, rather than x^4y^4. im having a hard time finding out why they would be different, thank you for your help.
Answer by Alwayscheerful(414)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! First of all, in the equation  , there is no "hidden" 1.
Well, there could be in the second part  , but it still would not affect the answer because it's outside of the parenthesis.
So, in fact, is TRUE.
You probably know that two negatives make a positive number.
So,  will be equal to  , which is 81
HOWEVER, if the negative sign was on the outside of the parenthesis, it would make the 2 equations different. For example,  would be different from because the negative is on the outside, which makes the whole product negative. That's where the "hidden" 1 comes in. In , it's not 1, it's -1.
The Law of Exponents is (and there are many more):
 =
So I don't know where you got  because that is completly wrong.
Hope this helps!
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