Re: "Power of a number" vs. "to the power of a number"
Ronald Bruck wrote:
The students, having varying degrees of math ability,
had a huge confusion with it -- but the thing is, not
one or two students; *all* of the 13 students were
completely mixed up, thinking that when I say "a power
of 2", then they picture the 2 in the exponent (because
it sounds to them like "to the power of 2").
I think this is one of the ambiguities inherent in English.
Your terminology is certainly correct, but the phrases
"to the power 2"
and
"to the power of 2"
are also reasonable English, and would place the 2 in the exponent.
The key word is "to" (and is missing in your phrase).
Ok. Thanks everyone for the clarification.
A couple follow-up details:
The course I'm talking about is not a Math course; it's
a PC Hardware course for a 1-year intensive program. It's
an "adult education" context, and that's why their degrees
of "math skills" vary quite widely.
To make things worse, after finding out that they were
mixed up with the term "a power of 10" or "powers of 10",
we were discussing about the possible source of confusion,
and, being in Montreal (Canada), where the "main" language
is French (even if most people are bilingual, many of them
natively English with French as a second-language), they
tell me that in French, the terminology is completely
different (the way they say it in French does not
translate to "x to the power of 2" -- it translates to
"x exponent 2").
So, I know that for the next time I have to teach this
topic of binary and hexadecimal numbers, I'll be more
careful to put some emphasis on that detail of the
terminology.
But these are the same kids who don't know the difference between
it's and its. What's a missing "to"?
Well, their not really kids, so maybe your overreacting
a bit? ;-)
Again, thanks all for your comments!
Carlos
--
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