How to raise a number to a negative power - examples with descriptions in Excel

From school, we all know the rule of exponentiation: any number with an index N is equal to the result of multiplying this number by itself N-th number of times. In other words, 7 to the power of 3 is 7 times three times, that is 343. Another rule is that raising any value to power 0 gives one, and raising a negative value is the result of a usual raising to a power, if it is even, and the same result with a minus sign if it is odd.

The rules also give an answer on how to raise a number to a negative degree. To do this, you need to build in the usual way the desired value by the indicator module, and then divide the unit by the result.

From these rules it becomes clear that the implementation of real tasks with large quantities will require the availability of technical means. Manually it will turn out to multiply by itself a maximum range of numbers up to twenty-thirty, and then no more than three or four times. This is not to mention the fact that then the unit is also divided by the result. Therefore, for those who do not have at hand a special engineering calculator, we will tell you how to raise a number to a negative power in Excel.

Problem Solving in Excel

To solve tasks with excellence, Excel allows you to use one of two options.

The first is the use of a formula with the standard cap symbol. Enter the following data into the cells of the worksheet:

In the same way, you can raise the desired value to any degree - negative, fractional. We perform the following steps and answer the question of how to raise a number to a negative degree. Example:

You can directly correct in the formula = B2 ^ -C2.

The second option is to use the ready-made function "Degree", which takes two mandatory arguments - a number and an indicator. To start using it, it is enough to put an equal sign (=) in any free cell, indicating the beginning of the formula, and enter the above words. It remains to select two cells that will participate in the operation (or specify specific numbers manually), and press the Enter key. Let's look at a few simple examples.

As you can see, there is nothing complicated in how to raise a number to a negative power and to a normal one using Excel. Indeed, to solve this problem, you can use both the familiar “cap” symbol and the built-in program function that is convenient for remembering. This is a definite plus!

Let's move on to more complex examples. Recall the rule on how to raise a number to a negative power of a fractional character, and see that this task is very easily solved in Excel.

Fractional indicators

In short, the algorithm for calculating a number with a fractional exponent is as follows.

1. Convert fractional to right or wrong fraction.
2. Raise our number to the numerator of the resulting converted fraction.
3. From the number obtained in the previous paragraph, calculate the root, with the condition that the denominator of the fraction obtained in the first stage will be the exponent of the root.

Agree that even with small numbers and the right fractions, such calculations can take a lot of time. It’s good that the Excel table processor doesn’t care what number and to what degree to raise. Try to solve the following example on an Excel worksheet:

Using the above rules, you can check and make sure that the calculation is correct.

At the end of our article, we give in the form of a table with formulas and results several examples of how to raise a number to a negative degree, as well as several examples with operating fractional numbers and degrees.

Table of examples

Check the following examples on the worksheet for the Excel workbook. For everything to work correctly, you need to use a mixed link when copying the formula. Fix the number of the column containing the raised number and the number of the row containing the metric. Your formula should look something like this: "= $ B4 ^ C $ 3".

Please note that positive numbers (even non-integers) can be calculated without any problems at any indicators. There are no problems with the construction of any numbers in whole numbers. But raising a negative number to a fractional power will turn out to be a mistake for you, since it is impossible to fulfill the rule indicated at the beginning of our article about raising negative numbers, because parity is a characteristic of an entire WHOLE number.