Tracy,

You are free to believe anything you like, but in this case you believe the wrong thing. *s*

Think of it as the sign of the number is more tightly bound to the number than any operator operating on the number. It defines which side of zero a number is on. Consider this valid expression:

1 + -2 - -3

it evaluates to 2

it is equivalent to

1 - 2 + 3

If the schools are adding to the innumeracy of the US it's a truly sad situation indeed.

>I believe that unary negation has a lower precedence than exponentiation. I think it is included in the rules for binary operations so it is not spelled out in PEMDAS.
>
>I don't think we can go by any programming language's rules of precendence because each language determines its own and it doesn't always match that of math .
>
>For example, -4^2 = -(4^2) = -16 NOT (-4)^2 = 16
>
>That's from my daughter's math worksheets :o) So, if it is wrong, blame her teacher or the math books her teacher used :o)