Åk 6–9
  • Start
  • 1. Welcome to Negative Numbers
  • 2. Understanding Negative Numbers
  • 3. Addition and Subtraction
  • 4. Multiplication and Division
  • 5. Powers
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    5.1 Power with Negative Bases
    Powers are covered in the section about natural numbers and you learn there that powers are repeated multiplication. Here is an example:

    23 = 2 · 2 · 2 = 8

    Calculating powers with a negative base isn’t difficult and an example could looke like this:

    (-2)3 = (-2) · (-2) · (-2) = -8

    A good method to show powers with negative numbers is to multiply two factors at a time:

    (-2) · (-2) = 4

    4 · (-2) = -8

    Something very important to be aware of is when you are calculating with parenthesis.  Look at this example:

    (-3)2 = (-3) · (-3) = 9

    -32 = -(32) = -(3 · 3) = -(9) = -9

    The conclusion is that you get different answers depending if the base is in parenthesis or not.