# How do you divide 1*10^-99 by 108?

1 * 10^-99 = 108x^5 <<<solve for x

I tried to solve it in my calculator, and it gave me an answer of 0. I need an answer expressed like 1 *10^-101 or something...

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1*10^(-99) = 108*(x^5)

(1/108)*(10^-99) = x^5

(10/108)*(10^-100) = x^5

((10/108)^(1/5))*((10^(-100))^(1/5)) = x

((0.09259)^(1/5))*(10^(-20)) = x

(0.62)*10^(-20) = x, Ans.

To keep it simple you can do it this way:

1. Forget the powers of ten and all that, just gets in the way.

2. Doing that, we can then simply divide 1 by 108 which requires us to add some zeros to the 1, (i.e. 1,000) which comes out as the repeating decimal 9.259259259... which is the answer except for putting back our zeros.

3. Well, we started out with -99, we had to go into debt with 3 more (the 3 we added to the one) so we have to subtract those from the total which leaves us -102.

4. The answer is then 9.25925926*10^-102 (rounded).

5. So the final answer is (9.25925926*10^-102)^-5, fifth root of 9.25925926*10^-102

1 * 10^-99 = 108x^5 <<<solve for x

= 1 * 10^-99 /1.08 * 10 ^2 = 9.25939*10^-102

x= fifth root of 9.25939*10^-102= 6.2132*10^-21

Questions like this cannot be solved by using the calculator as they work up to the + or - 100 power. So basically your calculator assume it is too small to be calculated, so it is better to use something like excel that works to higher powers.