How do you evaluate and simplify 16^(3/2)?

1 Answer
Feb 3, 2017

See the entire solution process below:

Explanation:

First, we can use this rule of exponents to rewrite this expression:

x^(color(red)(a) xx color(blue)(b)) = (x^color(red)(a))^color(blue)(b)

16^(3/2) = 16^(color(red)(1/2) xx color(blue)(3)) = (16^color(red)(1/2))^color(blue)(3)

We can rewrite and simplify this as:

(16^color(red)(1/2))^color(blue)(3) = (sqrt(16))^color(blue)(3) = 4^color(blue)(3)

Now, we can simplify this to:
4^color(blue)(3) = 4 xx 4 xx 4 = 16 xx 4 = 64