Evaluate y=4^-2

$y = 4^{- 2}$

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

$y = \frac{1}{4^{2}}$

Raise $4$ to the power of $2$ .

$y = \frac{1}{16}$

The result can be shown in multiple forms.

Exact Form:

$y = \frac{1}{16}$

Decimal Form:

$y = 0.0625$