A negative exponent simply means that the base is on the wrong side of the fraction line.
For example, if you have x-2, you can turn this into a positive exponent by moving the base to the denominator and changing the sign on the exponent. The result would be:
1
--
x2
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You can have negative exponents anywhere. When they are in the denominator, they are equivalent to positive exponents in the numerator of a fraction.
An integer exponent is a count of the number of times a particular number (the base) must be multiplied together. For example, for the base x, x^a means x*x*x*...*x where there are a lots of x in the multiplication. The definition is simple to understand for integer values of the exponent. This definition gives rise to the laws of exponents, and these allow this definition to be extended to the case where the exponents are negative, fractions, irrational and even complex numbers.
by doing reciprocal
They are the reciprocals of the positive exponents. Thus, x-a = 1/xa
A negative exponent becomes positive in the reciprocal. So if you have a number a^x where x is negative, then, a^x = 1/(a^-x) and, since x is negative, -x is positive.