>Jim,
>
>This has diverged so far and I've not read every message. But I have to just plain disagree with most people posting here.
>
>-2^2 is negative two squared.. it is not the negative of two squared.

Agreed. It's not really the negative of 2 squared. It's negative 1 times 2 squared. As far as most of the people posting who say what I'm saying, the info comes from math sources (texts, professors, engineers etc.). I know it seem counter-intuitive and initially, I agreed with your view, but so far, not one legitimate math source I've seen agrees; so afaic, I was wrong, and the texts etc are right.

>
>The sign is bound to the number.
>
>What would y'all say if the problem was written +2^2? It's the same thing with opposite sign, it is positive two squared, not the positive of two squared.
>
>>>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.
>>
>>This is a very interresting discussion. I would have gone along with you on the unary operator being a higher precedence than exponentiation. However, after reading this thread adn the supporting links to the various arguments I am beginning to agree with the idea that unary sign is at the precedence evel of multiplication and division.