Question

Why can’t you raise 0 to a negative exponent?

Answer 1

Step-by-step explanation:

To know this, you first have to know what a negative exponent is. A positive exponent multiplies the base by itself a given amount of times, but a negative exponent makes a fraction with 1 in the numerator and the base and exponent in the denominator. For example:

$2^{-2}$ = $\frac{1}{2^2}$ = $\frac{1}{4}$

So let's try to do the same thing with 0 with a negative exponent.

$0^{-2}$ = $\frac{1}{0^2}$ = $\frac{1}{0}$

This is a big no-no. You can never have 0 as the denominator since it is undefined. Therefore, you can't raise 0 to a negative exponent.

I really hope this helps you =)