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Course: 6th grade > Unit 4
Lesson 3: Powers of fractions and decimalsExponents of decimals
Exponents of decimals can be calculated by multiplying the decimal number by itself as many times as the exponent indicates. When multiplying decimals, count the total number of digits to the right of the decimal points in both numbers and place the same number of digits to the right of the decimal point in the product.
Video transcript
- [Instructor] What we're
going to do in this video is get some practice evaluating
exponents of decimals. So let's say that I have
0.2 to the third power. Pause this video, see
if you can figure out what that is going to be. Well, this would just mean
that if I take something to the third power, that means
I take three of that number and I multiply them together. So it's 0.2 times 0.2 times 0.2. Well, what is this going to be equal to? Well, if I take 0.2 times
0.2, that is going to be 0.04. One way to think about
it, two times two is four and then I have one
number behind the decimal to the right of the decimal here. I have another digit to
the right of the decimal right over here, so my product
is going to have two digits to the right of the
decimal, so it'd be 0.04. And then if I were to
multiply that times 0.2, so if I were to multiply that together what is that going to be equal to? Well, four times two is equal to eight and now I have one, two, three numbers to the right of the decimal point, so my product is going to
have one, two, three numbers to the right of the decimal point. So now that we've had a little
bit of practice with that, let's do another example. So let's say that I were to
ask you, what is 0.9 squared? Pause this video and see
if you can figure that out. All right, well this is just
going to be 0.9 times 0.9. And what's that going to be equal to? Well, you could just say nine times nine is going to be equal to
81, and so, let's see, in the two numbers that I'm multiplying I have a total of one, two
numbers, or two digits, to the right of the decimal point so my answer's going
to have one, two digits to the right of the decimal point. So put the decimal right over there and I'll put the zero, so 0.81. Another way to think about it
is nine-tenths of nine-tenths is 81 hundredths, but there you go. Using exponents, or taking
exponents of decimals is the same as when we're
taking it of integers. It's just in this case you just have to do a little bit of decimal multiplication.