Question

how do you subtract powers , for example 9.7 x 10 to the power of 5 minus 8.73 x 10 to the power of 5?

Answer 1

Given:

`(9.7*10^5)-(8.73*10^5)`

To subtract the numbers, since they both have the same power, we subtract the decimal numbers separately and multiply by the number having the exponents.

Hence,

`9.7-8.73=0.97`

Now multiply by 10 to the power of 5.

Therefore, the final answer is;

`\begin{gathered} 0.97*10^5 \\ \\ In\text{ standard form;} \\ 9.7*10^4 \end{gathered}`