Question

How do you determine if the equation `y=(1/4)^x` represents exponential growth or decay?

Answer 1

I would say decay:

Explanation:

You can see that for, say, `x=2,3,4...` your function always gives you a number one divided by something that is increasing every time resulting in a total number that gets smaller every time!
`1/4^2,1/4^3,1/4^4...`

So, basically, as `x` increases `1/4^x` decreases!

Graphically:

graph{(1/4)^x [-10, 10, -5, 5]}