>>>Metin,
>>>
>>>> but online math calculator, my math. eng. friend and my daughter say -4... :(
>>>
>>>They are all wrong. The answer is 4.
>>>
>>>The unary negation operation has higher precedence than exponentiation.
>>>
>>>I order for the answer to be -4, the expression would have to be -(2**2) using parens in order to force the exponentiation to happen first.
>>
>>No David. In normal math, the unary operator does not have precedence because it actually represents a multiplication by -1. In other words, -2**2 is the same as saying -1*2**2 and since exponentiation takes precedence over multiplication, the correct answer is -4. For the record, I thought it was 4 at first too.
>>
>>Check this out:
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/69058.html>
>This is much better:
>
>
http://cdbaby.com/cd/rappinmath>
>:o)
>
>Listen to the itty bitty dot... :o)
>
>or this video:
>
>
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6307289That's fantastic. Just when you think teachers have lost any ability to involve the students, somebody like this comes along and proves it can still be done if they're creative enough.