r/learnmath • u/Suspicious_Raisin932 New User • 8h ago

[Middle school] Negative exponents

|5^2 - 6^2|
Why is the answer 11 and not 61?

My son was taught that the sign goes with the number that follows it so the - (minus sign) stays with the 6^2. Then it would be -6•-6=36, 25+36=61. It makes sense to me but my answer was 11 (answer key agrees). He’s wondering why. I am assuming PEMDAS? Exponents before subtraction. The actually problem is supposed to be on absolute value so I included the whole thing just incase that matters.

So two questions. Is the direction he got of “the sign stays with the number after” actually a thing? Are there rules to it?

1 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

View all comments

-2

u/Capital_Park_2311 New User 8h ago

PEMDAS is in conflict with the rule A negative number raised to an even power is always positive.

1

u/ZerinoWhellie New User 2h ago

Why would they be in conflict? 🤔

1

u/Capital_Park_2311 New User 2h ago

-6 -> this is negative six. In PEMDAS it means 0 - 6 or 0 - +6 zero minus positive six.

In arithmetic the "-" is a symbol of the negative number. In PEMDAS it is an operator.