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17.2: Appendix B- A precalculus review

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    B.1 Manipulating exponents

    Recall: \(2^{n}=2 \cdot 2 \ldots 2\) (with \(n\) factors of 2). This means:

    \[2^{n} \cdot 2^{m}=\underbrace{(2 \cdot 2 \ldots 2)}_{n \text { factors }} \cdot \underbrace{(2 \cdot 2 \ldots 2)}_{m \text { factors }}=\underbrace{2 \cdot 2 \cdot \ldots \cdots 2}_{n+m \text { factors }}=2^{n+m} . \nonumber \]

    Similarly, we can derive many properties of manipulations of exponents. A list of these appears below, and holds for any positive base \(a\).

    1. \(2^{a} 2^{b}=2^{a+b}\) as with all similar exponent manipulations.
    2. \(\left(2^{a}\right)^{b}=2^{a b}\) also stems from simple rules for manipulating exponents.
    3. \(2^{x}\) is a function that is defined, continuous, and differentiable for all real values \(x\).
    4. \(2^{x}>0\) for all values of \(x\).
    5. We define \(2^{0}=1\), and we also have that \(2^{1}=2\).
    6. \(2^{x} \rightarrow 0\) for increasingly negative values of \(x\).
    7. \(2^{x} \rightarrow \infty\) for increasing positive values of \(x\).

    B.2 Manipulating logarithms

    The following properties hold for logarithms of any base (we used base 2 in our previous section and keep the same base here). Properties of the logarithm stem directly from properties of the exponential function, and include the following:

    1. \(\log _{2}(a b)=\log _{2}(a)+\log _{2}(b)\).
    2. \(\log _{2}\left(a^{b}\right)=b \log _{2}(a)\).
    3. \(\log _{2}(1 / a)=\log _{2}\left(a^{-1}\right)=-\log _{2}(a)\).

    This page titled 17.2: Appendix B- A precalculus review was last modified on Wed, 21 Jun 2023 04:26:27 GMT and is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Leah Edelstein-Keshet via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.