<img src="https://d5nxst8fruw4z.cloudfront.net/atrk.gif?account=iA1Pi1a8Dy00ym" style="display:none" height="1" width="1" alt="" />

Exponential Properties Involving Quotients

Subtract exponents to divide exponents by other exponents

Estimated10 minsto complete
%
Progress
Practice Exponential Properties Involving Quotients

MEMORY METER
This indicates how strong in your memory this concept is
Progress
Estimated10 minsto complete
%
Exponential Properties Involving Quotients

Exponential Properties Involving Quotients

The rules for simplifying quotients of exponents are a lot like the rules for simplifying products.

Let’s look at what happens when we divide by :

You can see that when we divide two powers of , the number of ’s in the solution is the number of ’s in the top of the fraction minus the number of ’s in the bottom. In other words, when dividing expressions with the same base, we keep the same base and simply subtract the exponent in the denominator from the exponent in the numerator.

Quotient Rule for Exponents:

When we have expressions with more than one base, we apply the quotient rule separately for each base:

Now let’s see what happens if the exponent in the denominator is bigger than the exponent in the numerator. For example, what happens when we apply the quotient rule to ?

The quotient rule tells us to subtract the exponents. 4 minus 7 is -3, so our answer is . A negative exponent! What does that mean?

OR

Well, let’s look at what we get when we do the division longhand by writing each term in factored form:

Even when the exponent in the denominator is bigger than the exponent in the numerator, we can still subtract the powers. The ’s that are left over after the others have been canceled out just end up in the denominator instead of the numerator. Just as would be equal to (or simply ), is equal to . And you can also see that is equal to . We’ll learn more about negative exponents shortly.

Simplifying Expressions

Simplify the following expressions, leaving all exponents positive.

a)

Subtract the exponent in the numerator from the exponent in the denominator and leave the ’s in the denominator:

b)

Apply the rule to each variable separately:

Examples

Simplify each of the following expressions using the quotient rule.

c)

Review

Evaluate the following expressions.

Simplify the following expressions.

Notes/Highlights Having trouble? Report an issue.

Color Highlighted Text Notes

Vocabulary Language: English

Base

When a value is raised to a power, the value is referred to as the base, and the power is called the exponent. In the expression $32^4$, 32 is the base, and 4 is the exponent.

Exponent

Exponents are used to describe the number of times that a term is multiplied by itself.

Power

The "power" refers to the value of the exponent. For example, $3^4$ is "three to the fourth power".