hi there. i am only a new member. i was hoping someone could help get the answer to the folling equations - a to the power of 4 * a to the power of 5 over a * a to the power of 2. the next one is - 4m over 9p divided by 8mp over 3. if someone could reply and give me the answer, their help will be greatly appreciated.

Those are not equations, they are expressions. Expressions cannot be solved, because they do not equal anything. They can however, be simplified.

What I mean is this:
Could you please solve this expression:

4a * 5

There is nothing to solve there. Do you mean simplify? If it were simplified, it would become 20a. Can you be more specific as to what you are looking for?

Thanks.

sorry. i mean simplify.

i am asking these two questions as i got them wrong in my end of year maths exam and i don not have the answers, so i don't know how to work them. i was hoping that someone could show how to find the correct answer. is this ok

jamer5,

It's late, but after reading your post I felt like testing my maths skills so I roughly jotted down the expressions I thought you had said, and simplified them.

"a to the power of 4 * a to the power of 5 over a * a to the power of 2"

I interpreted as :

(a4 * a5) / (a*a2)

Approaching (a4 * a5), we know that we merely need to add the powers.
Consequently:

a9

Approaching (a*a2), we know that a is also expressable as a1. Following the previously mentioned rule:

a1 * a2 = a3

Put together we obtain:

a9 / a3

As dividing works as the opposite of multiplication of powers, and so we subtract (9 - 3), leaving:

a6

----------

The next expresion was more interesting.

"4m over 9p divided by 8mp over 3"

I interpreted as: (4m/9p)/(8mp/3)

Firstly, if we consider x/y is equivalent to x * 1/y, we can substitute x for(4m/9p) and y for (8mp/3), leaving us with:

(4m/9p) * (1/(8mp/3))

Next, as 1/(a/b) is equivalent to b/a we can simply further as:

1/(8mp/3) becomes 3/8mp

we have obtained:

(4m/9p) * (3/8mp)

Essentially, the previous two simplifactions can be expressed as follows:

"To divide one fraction by a second fraction, convert the problem to multiplication and multiply the two fractions"

Multiplying the fractions is easy: multiply the numerators, and then multiply the denominators. Then reduce the result.

(4m*3) / (9p*8mp)
12m / 72m*p2
m / 6m*p2
1 / 6*p2

And there is the answer: 1/(6p2)

Good luck to you in your endeviours. :)

Edit: I should have read the Forum FAQ more precisely and remembered there are the superscript tags. Duh.

thanks alot. i now understand. i forgot to switch 8mp/3 to 3/8mp. thanks again

yr 9