I have a homework question... please help!?

Question

Okay, so what's the answer and how do you find it?
the brackets represent parenthesis. The parenthasis represents an exponent.

[ a ] (-2)
------
[b(-1)]

This is for my algebra 2 class... and a lot of questions deal with negative exponents. I'm just trying to simplify these questions. I need to know how to continue.

Thanks.

<3
stranger.

Answer 1

(1/a^2)/1/b=b/a^2

Answer 2

With a negative exponent, you switch something from the denominator into the numerator, or vice versa. So [x](-1)=1/x and [x](-3)=1/[x](3) and 1/[x](-2)=[x](2). The answer to the problem you gave is b/[a](2).

Answer 3

Ok. First of all, next time please use paranthesis as paranthesis and ^ for showing the exponent:

[a](-2) -------> a^(-2)

Then you can write:
a^(-2) = 1/(a^2)
And:
b^(-1) = 1/b

If you want to try it out, let a=2 and try it on your calculator:
2^(-2) = 1/(2^2) = 0.25

and then let b=2
2^(-1) = 1/2 = 0.5

Answer 4

Jen is right!