Evaluate a*a^-10

$a \cdot a^{- 10}$

Step 1

Multiply $a$ by $a^{- 10}$ by adding the exponents.

Multiply $a$ by $a^{- 10}$ .

Raise $a$ to the power of $1$ .

$a^{1} \cdot a^{- 10}$

Use the power rule $a^{m} a^{n} = a^{m + n}$ to combine exponents.

$a^{1 - 10}$

Subtract $10$ from $1$ .

$a^{- 9}$

Step 2

Rewrite the expression using the negative exponent rule $b^{- n} = \frac{1}{b^{n}}$ .

$\frac{1}{a^{9}}$