>>>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=6307289

That'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.