In article , Sam Glick wrote:
=)Why does any number to the power of ``0'' equal ``1''? Please HELP!

You've come to the right place. It turns out I was on the International Mathematics Standardization Committee when we invented exponents. There was a lot of talk about making numbers to the 0 power equal 0, since this seemed fairly intuitive and easy to remember, but there was a consortium of digit manufacturers lobbying for another answer due to the fact that their profit margins on zeros were fairly small and they were having a hard time keeping them in stock anyway. They wanted to have it be 5, in fact, because the demand for fives was fairly low at the time and a couple of them were running five factories at half capacity. About then, though, the DOD built the Pentagon and started buying fives at an astounding rate (and paying through the nose for them!) so that wasn't so much of a concern. By the time we got to the final vote, it was basically between one and 223,417,239 (the latter was proposed by IBM) and we decided on one just because it was easier to remember. Of course, due to computers, the numbers are a lot cheaper and easier to manufacture than they used to be, so it doesn't really make a lot of difference anymore; feel free to use whatever answer you like. Be warned, though, that a lot of math teachers are staunch traditionalists (and several of them were on the committee) so they may take off points for not using the preferred standard.