this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
994 points (96.4% liked)

Memes

45887 readers
1287 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
994
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In addition to the explanation others have mentioned, here it is in graph form. See the where the graph of 2^x intersects the y axis (when x=0):

https://people.richland.edu/james/lecture/m116/logs/exponential.html

This also has some additional verbal explanations:

http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=2626

The simplest way I think of it is by the properties of exponentials:

2^3 / 2^2 = (2 * 2 * 2) / (2 * 2) = 2 = 2^(3-2)

Dividing two exponentials with the same base (in this case 2) is the same as that same base (2) to the power of the difference between the exponent in the numerator minus the exponent in the denominator (3 and 2 in this case).

Now lets make both exponents the same:

2^3 / 2^3 = 8/8 = 1

2^3 / 2^3 = 2^(3-3) = 2^0 = 1