Video Transcript
What terminology do we use to
describe the half in the expression one-half to the fifth power and the five in the
expression one-half to the fifth power?
We begin by recalling that an
expression of the form 𝑎 to the 𝑛th power is called an exponential expression or
the 𝑛th power of 𝑎. We call 𝑎 the base of the
expression and 𝑛 the exponent or power. In this question, we have the
expression one-half to the fifth power. The one-half is the number that is
being taken to a power, and the five is the power itself. We can therefore conclude that in
the expression one-half to the fifth power, one-half is called the base of the
expression and five is called the exponent of the expression.
