High School: Number and Quantity » The Real Number System » Extend the properties of exponents to rational exponents. » 1

Explain how the definition of the meaning of rational exponents follows from extending the properties of integer exponents to those values, allowing for a notation for radicals in terms of rational exponents. For example, we define 5^1/3 to be the cube root of 5 because we want (5^1/3)³ = 5^(1/3)3 to hold, so (5^1/3)³ must equal 5.