Laws of Exponents: Division « Dead Bunny Educational

May 8, 2007

Filed under: Math Tidbits — Rebecca @ 9:53 pm

All right, today we’re going to tackle dividing rational expressions. (Forgive me now for any LaTex errors. I’m still learning.)

Rule #2- ( $\frac{a^{x}}{a^{y}}$ ) = a^x-y

Practically: ( $\frac{x^{6}}{x^{2}}$ ) = ( $\frac{x * x * x * x * x * x}{x * x}$ )

Each x on the bottom can cancel out a x on top, leaving us with x * x * x * x, or x⁴.

Put simply: ( $\frac{x^{6}}{x^{2}}$ ) = x^{6 – 2} = x⁴

Again, this only works if the bases are the same.

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