Thread: Help Simplifying with a polynomial exponent

Hoping someone can help me here. I'm taking an online high school math course, and I'm unsure I'm doing one of the questions right, and can't find a similar problem anywhere. Simplify this equation:



After going through a bunch of steps including expanding, simplifying, laws of exponents, etc, I've come up with a final answer of x^(3b^2). I'd show my work except I stink at formatting, but I'll try if anyone thinks it would be helpful!

Thanks in advance!

Originally Posted by malajulinka

Hoping someone can help me here. I'm taking an online high school math course, and I'm unsure I'm doing one of the questions right, and can't find a similar problem anywhere. Simplify this equation:



After going through a bunch of steps including expanding, simplifying, laws of exponents, etc, I've come up with a final answer of x^(3b^2). I'd show my work except I stink at formatting, but I'll try if anyone thinks it would be helpful!

Thanks in advance!

that would be correct ...

$\displaystyle \frac{(x^{a+b})^{a-b}}{(x^{a-2b})^{a+2b}} = \frac{x^{a^2-b^2}}{x^{a^2-4b^2}} = x^{3b^2}$

Thanks Skeeter! Those were my steps too, with lots more in between. Every online solver I tried would tell me it couldn't be simplified, but I *knew* I was onto something!