exponents

by **jdelong** Sun Sep 21, 2008 1:53 pm

A general math question: When a negative number is raised to the 0 power is it always 1? Not -1?

ex. (-3)^0=1?

Thanks.

by **cooper2248817** Wed Sep 24, 2008 4:21 pm

any number raised to 0 is positive 1.

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by **RonPurewal** Tue Nov 04, 2008 8:47 am

yep, always 1.

the only exception is 0^0, which is what's called an "indeterminate form": it doesn't have a value at all. this is a juicy topic in mathematics, but, when you're taking the gmat, you'll only see 0/0 if you've made a mistake somewhere.
(anything else)^0 is 1.