How do I express with positive exponents?

Question

14x/-3 y /-3

____________

7x/-4 y-3

and the whole equation is in ( ) raised to the -2

Answer 1

Kristine -

I'm not sure I can reproduce your equation, so I'm going to answer generally:

When you have a negative exponent, then that means you take the reciprocal of what is raised to the exponent, and the exponent becomes positive. Some examples to clarify:

x^-2 = 1/(x²) 

1/(x^-2) = x²

(x^-2)/(y^-3) = y³/x²    <=== since both x and y have negative exponents, we take the reciprocal of each.

(x-3)^-3(y+3)² = (y+3)²/(x - 3)³   <=== since (x-3) has a negative power and is in the numerator, it moved to the denominator

(2x/3 + 5)² [1/(3x/5 - 4)^-4 ]= (2x/3 + 5)² (3x/5 - 4)⁴    <=== (3x/5 - 4) has a negative power in the denominator, so it moves to the numerator. No changes are made to the fractions within the parentheses.

Hope that helps you get started.