Sometimes exponents can be non-integral values; they can be fractions and decimals.  It is useful to think of decimal exponents as fractions, because fractional exponents can be thought of as roots.

The same exponent laws that apply to integral exponents, then, can also be applied to rational exponents.  For this reason, it is sometimes useful to convert roots to exponents.

Vocabulary:

rational numbers - numbers that can be written as a fraction.  Normally, we think of these as being decimal values or fractions

integral values - numbers that are integers (positive or negative, with no decimal value)

Resources

• Notes

Assignment

• p180 #1-5 (do ace for each question as a minimum, but more is better)