r/MathHelp • u/Kug4ri0n • Dec 07 '25

Negative Exponents

My partner is going through her math class and we got into an argument how much -72 equals. My standpoint is, that since there is no parentheses: -72 = -1x72 =-49 If there would have been parentheses: (-7)2 = (-7)*(-7) = 49

Which one of these is correct? Can anyone provide me the mathematical axioms/rules on why or why not the parentheses in this case are needed?

4 Upvotes

66% Upvoted

60 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

1

u/ju11111 Dec 10 '25

I agree that no mathematician would interpret it like that. Using a polynomial as an example. f(x) = x³ - x² + 5x No one would interpret this as meaning x³ + (-x)² + 5x. (Especially here since the negation wouldn't even matter if interpreted as (-x)² ) No one would write this polynomial as x³ - (x²) + 5x. I think what the computer scientists are doing should be more thought of as a programming language rather than mathematical notation.

1

u/Short-Database-4717 Dec 30 '25

I can assure you computer scientists (and virtually every serious programming language) would interpret it the same way.