ABSTRACT
The base and exponent together, such as two to the fourth, is called a power. Two to the fourth power means that two is multiplied together four times. A root is a number which equals the original number. The type of root determines how many times a number must be multiplied to equal the original number. A square root is a number, which when multiplied together two times, equals the original number. A cube root is a number, which when multiplied together three times, equals the original number. The numerator of a fractional exponent indicates the power of the number; and as such, when written in radical form, the power is placed under the radical with the number. Numbers used in various fields of science are often very large or very small. For this reason, a method of writing numbers was developed to make working with such numbers less cumbersome. This method is called scientific notation.
