It was the end; coma was coming; the mind was departing with the breath. The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete Emile Zola It was not long before they were reduced to a coma of hunger.
An exponent is a quantity representing the power to which some other quantity is raised. Exponents do not have to be numbers or constants; they can be variables. They are often positive whole number s, but they can be negative number s, fractional number s, irrational number s, or complex number s.
Fractional Exponents. In a fractional exponent, the numerator is the power to which the number should be taken and the denominator is the root which should be taken. Order does not matter when evaluating exponents--it is usually easier to take the root first, and then take the power.