Google was right the answer is -87

apparently the -3^2 means -(3)^2...

how very misleading... I could see it meaning that if the -3^2 was somewhere not at the beginning of the problem... but.. -3^2 totally means 9 at the front...

bah

What I have not seen printed in this tome is what the "-" means (how to interpret). The majority of the posts seem to interpret - as minus. The fact is that a number, preceeded by a minus (-) must be interpreted as "the opposite sign of..."

Realizing this, without pantlegs (para.), -3^2 must be interpreted as the opposite sign of 3^2, which would be -9.

Enjoy...

I will forever now hate -3^2



but I do see where you get that -3^2 will be interpreted as the opposite..

You should hate it. In fact, I lied above.

It really depends on the interpretation of the sign, as you know. For example, in the forumula:

sum(n=1..N) ( (-1^n)/n), -1^n clearly means (-1)^n. (Hopefully my terminology here makes sense.)

Any FORTRAN programmers here? What would " - 3 ** 2" mean? I don't know of any other computer languages with a power operator, and really don't remember much FORTRAN; I took a class on it in '82 and haven't touched it since.

I think that means the guy that wrote FORTRAN had a stutter.