what does ^ mean in algebra????

Question

im not in algebra but iv been learning on my own to solve small and easy algebra problems and in many problems on yahoo answers if found this sighn:^ i would like to know what it means
thank you

Answer 1

If someone wrote 4^2, it means 4 raised to the 2nd power, or 4 squared. Reason for this is , there is no way to write it the right way with the computer kerboard, so the [^ caret] sign is used for this purpose.

Answer 2

be careful...it is often mis-used. People who can't type something like 2² (2 to the power of 2) will often type 2^2 instead. However, the ^ symbol actually has a mathematical meaning and is being MISUSED by anyone who does this.

My guess is that it's being mis-used by whoever wrote the sum you're looking at...but if not, i've explained what it REALLY means below:


Lets start with some numbers...

1 and
2

A) it is false that 1=2
B) it is true that 1=1
C) it is true that 2=2
D) it is true that 1+1 =2

each of those lines in the list above is a statement about how those numbers (1 and 2) relate to each other..and the statements either come out TRUE or FALSE

...what if we want to compare not the numbers behind the statements..but the statements themselves? so we are say, comparing the first statement (A), and the second statement (B)

we'd jot down our comparison like this...

A^B

so we remember we're comparing statement A with B.

in my original list above, statement A was false. in maths, if either of the letters on either side of the "^" symbol are false, we say the whole comparison (A^B) is FALSE

so we'd say A^B=False

alternateively if we compared 2 TRUE statements from our original list (we'll go with B and C)

we'd say B^C = TRUE


we're now using maths to shorthand long sums because instead of having to go back to the original numbers....1 and 2...we can look at how the 2 numbers relate to each other, and compare them to the rules which apply to other numbers, it gives us an idea of how sets of numbers relate to other sets of numbers.

Answer 3

^ means raised to the power... for example 4 raised to the power 2 is 4x4=16. while typing these forums it is impossible to actually type anything as a superscript. Hence people use ^ symbol. 4^2=16. This symbol is also used in programming languages for the computer to understand the same

Answer 4

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Answer 5

MEANS: put the # in order then find the highest one then add to the lowest #....

Answer 6

it means the power of, ex 2 carrot button 2 equals 4

Answer 7

Raise to a power 4 ^2 = 4 squared = 16
most keyboards don't allow you to have superscripts or even subscripts.

Answer 8

It's the way to mean "exponent" or "to the power of".

So x² could be written x^2

Answer 9

Its another way of writing "To The Power Of" because it looks strange if we just wrote eg. 82 (it looks like 82) so we would write 8^2.

Answer 10

raised to the power of