I don't know where to put this...........

[micmak]

So as chat has a lot of posters I thought I would try here.
Could someone please explain to me how this works. ? What is 10 to the power of 3. I know the answer is 1000, but I don't know how to work it out. Also can you give me other examples so I can hopefully find out how to do it. Thanks

[mollykins]

you'd write it 10 with a little three, this means that you times ten by itself three times 10 x 10 x 10 is 1000, 10 to the power of four is 10 x 10 x 10 x10 = 10,000

[mollykins]

and so on.

[boxtops]

I am no mathematician, but 10 to power 3 is (in my understanding) 10 x 10 x 10 = 1000.

[mollykins]

and if you do to the power of minus x then the number is divided by itself how ever many times.

[The Builder]

............. Molly ............... that's the reciprocal .......... 10 to the power of minus 3 would be 1 over 1000

[micmak]

Thanks Molly and boxtops. Molly can you run the minus one past me again with an example please.

[Prudie]

Jumping in here the minus just means 1 divided by the number raised to the power

eg 10 ^-1 means 1/10 or 0.1

10^-2 means 1/(10x10) =1/100 or 0.01

10^-3 measn 1/(10x10x10)= 1/1000 or 0.001

etc -Difficult to explain without the correct typeface. When doing powers of 10 it's easy to get the answer because it's always 1 plus the number of noughts equal to the powere raised eg 10^5 = 100,000

[micmak]

Thanks Prudie.