That's the fundamental issue. Is the negative sign in front of the digit an operation and, if so, the interpretation is -(9^2). Parentheses are not required. -9^2 is the same thing.

But, if it's simply a negative number, the interpretation is (-9)^2.

Two different results. But, I do see the possibility of getting the positive result.

Arguably the greatest mathematician in human history, Carl Friedrich Gauss, said, "Mathematics is the queen of sciences and arithmetic is the queen of mathematics."

Exponentiation is nothing more than multiplication and multiplication is nothing more than addition. Standard notation and operations have been agreed upon for a couple of centuries, I reckon. Why not avail ourselves of the mathematical conventions?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_basic_arithmetic_topics

Bump for the solution. :D

Math makes my head hurt. I like pictures and concrete stuff better than abstract things.

A little math might make your head catch on fire..............;)

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.