Ads
related to: word problems with exponents worksheet 5th
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Word problem from the Līlāvatī (12th century), with its English translation and solution. In science education, a word problem is a mathematical exercise (such as in a textbook, worksheet, or exam) where significant background information on the problem is presented in ordinary language rather than in mathematical notation.
When an exponent is a positive integer, that exponent indicates how many copies of the base are multiplied together. For example, 3 5 = 3 · 3 · 3 · 3 · 3 = 243. The base 3 appears 5 times in the multiplication, because the exponent is 5. Here, 243 is the 5th power of 3, or 3 raised to the 5th power.
The word problem for an algebra is then to determine, given two expressions (words) involving the generators and operations, whether they represent the same element of the algebra modulo the identities. The word problems for groups and semigroups can be phrased as word problems for algebras. [1]
When exponents were introduced in the 16th and 17th centuries, they were given precedence over both addition and multiplication and placed as a superscript to the right of their base. [2] Thus 3 + 5 2 = 28 and 3 × 5 2 = 75. These conventions exist to avoid notational ambiguity while allowing notation to remain brief. [4]
[1] [2] The exponents p corresponding to Mersenne primes must themselves be prime, although the vast majority of primes p do not lead to Mersenne primes—for example, 2 11 − 1 = 2047 = 23 × 89. [3] Perfect numbers are natural numbers that equal the sum of their positive proper divisors, which are divisors excluding the number itself.
The word problem was one of the first examples of an unsolvable problem to be found not in mathematical logic or the theory of algorithms, but in one of the central branches of classical mathematics, algebra. As a result of its unsolvability, several other problems in combinatorial group theory have been shown to be unsolvable as well.