How do you work out something which is a power to a power of something else?

3 years ago

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Sienna Bayer

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You do this by using your laws of indices. So (X^a)^b is X^(ab). An example with numbers is (4^2)^3 = 4^6.

You need to take care when you have something like (2(X^3))^4.

This must be written using the distributive property as (2^4)((X^3)^4), which then simplifies to 16(X^12).

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