freeCodeCamp/guide/english/mathematics/how-to-divide-exponents/index.md

title
How to Divide Exponents

How to Divide Exponents

You can divide exponential expressions, leaving the answers as exponential expressions, as long as the bases are the same.

To divide exponents (or powers) with the same base, subtract the exponents. Division is the opposite of multiplication, so it makes sense that because you add exponents when multiplying numbers with the same base, you subtract the exponents when dividing numbers with the same base.

Terminology

a^b , so a is the base and b is exponential.

Examples

Note

Any number to the power of zero equals 1, as long as the base number is not 0.