How do you write #z^-5*z^-1# using only positive exponents?

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Answer 1 · 2016-09-30T16:48:11

#1/z^6#

Recall: #x^-m = 1/x^m#

There are two approaches - either:

add the indices first with one base and then attend to the negative index:

#z^-5 xx z^-1 = z^-6 = 1/z^6#

OR

Attend to the negative indices first, then add the indices.

#z^-5 xx z^-1 = 1/z^5 xx 1/z = 1/z^6#

The answer is the same.